MOUNT PLEASANT — A pair of gold medals won by Ella Riggs highlighted Surry County’s appearance in the 2A Midwest Regional Track & Field Championship.
Riggs, a junior from North Surry, captured her regional titles in shot put and discus throw. She looks to win her second-consecutive Shot Put State Title in outdoor track after winning the event in 2023, and looks to improve on her 2023 State Runner-up finish in discus throw. She also won the 1A/2A Indoor Track Shot Put State Championship earlier this year.
Riggs is one of ten Surry County Athletes that qualified for the 2A State Championship. Two competitors — North Surry’s Derrick Simmons and East Surry’s Isaac Vaden — qualified by finishing regional runner-up in their respective events, while four more individuals and one relay team qualified by finishing either third or fourth.
Representing Surry County at the 2A State Championship will be: North Surry’s Riggs, Simmons, Lenae Sumner and Ariana Liberatore; East Surry’s Vaden; Surry Central’s Migral Perez and the girls 4x400-meter relay team of Sierra Carpenter, Ivy Toney, Aylin Rodriguez and Tasyanna Hughes.
North Surry
The Greyhounds finished seventh as a team in the girls competition and 11th in the boys competition.
Riggs’ mark of 40-09 feet in shot put met the MileSplit US Second Team Standard and won the regional title by more than eight feet. She was one of only three girls to meet the standard at regionals, and the only one to do so in multiple events.
Fellow Greyhounds Anna Escobar and Westyn McCraw also competed in shot put and finished seventh and 16th respectively.
Riggs’ mark of 125-02 won the regional championship by nearly 15 feet. She was joined by teammates Escobar and Lexi Sutherland in the event, and they finished seventh and 16th respectively.
Riggs enters the state championship ranked No. 1 in the state for both shot put and discus.
Liberatore finished third in long jump with a distance of 16-11.50, and was followed by Sumner in fourth at 16-11.25. Liberatore will also compete in triple jump at states by finishing fourth at regionals with a mark of 34-06.50.
Sumner also competed in high jump and finished sixth.
Derrick Simmons was the only state qualifier for the boys by finishing second in long jump with a mark of 21-04 feet. Fisher Leftwich just missed out on qualifying by placing fifth at 20-03.
Two more Greyhounds — Jaime Cruz-Martinez and Anthony Williams — also finished one spot from qualifying for states. Cruz-Martinez took fifth in shot put at 43-02.50, and Williams was fifth in discus at 130-00.
Cruz Ramirez competed in the 1,600-meter run at regionals at finished 11th with a time of 4:59.17. Uriah Kearse competed in shot put and finished ninth with a mark of 39-08, while North’s 4x100 team finished 11th.
East Surry
The Cardinals finished 25th as a team in the girls competition and 16th in the boys competition.
Four East Surry girls teamed up to compete in two relay races at regionals: Kelis Brown, Brycen Banks, Kyleigh Boyette and Lilli Clodfelter. The girls finished eighth in the 4x200-meter relay with a time of 1:53.45, and 10th in the 4x100 with a time of 53.82 seconds.
Clodfelter also competed in long jump and finished eighth with a distance of 15-09.
Dayton Haynes competed in high jump but did not place.
Vaden finished runner-up in discus throw with mark of 158-09, which was 21 feet farther than the bronze medalist. Vaden was in a two-man race with West Stanly’s Owen Grismer, who won the event with a mark of 161-10. Like Riggs in shot put, Vaden and Grismer’s throws both met the MileSplit US Second Team standard.
Grismer and Vaden enter the state championship ranked second and third in the state respectively.
Vaden won the 2A Discus State Title in 2022, then finished state runner-up in 2023.
The only other male Cardinal to compete at regionals was Nolan Withers, who finished 13th in the 400 meters with a time of 55.19 seconds.
Surry Central
The Golden Eagles finished 21st as a team in the girls competition and 14th in the boys competition.
The 4x400 team of Carpenter, Toney, Rodriguez and Hughes took third in the event with a time of 4:20.23. The Eagles were only nine seconds out of first place, and three seconds out of second place.
Hughes also competed in the 400 meters and finished 10th with a time of 1:04.89.
Destiny Cobbler competed in pole vault but did not place.
Perez became Surry Central’s only male state qualifier by taking third in the 800 meters. Perez’s time of 2:04.55 was less than three seconds behind the gold medalist.
Just missing out of qualifying for states was Central’s 4x400 team that finished fifth with a time of 3:38.96.
Four Surry Central runners competed at regionals but did not qualify for states: Allen Huffman finished seventh in the 300 hurdles at 42.28, Aaron Aguilar took ninth in the 1,600 at 5:00.32, Jacob Doria finished 10th in the 3,200 at 11:12.48, and Preston Hall finished 11th in shot put at 113-00.
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