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Ever since she was a little girl, Kayla Parker has wanted to be a runner. "When she was about 4 years old, we asked her what she wanted to be when she grew up," her uncle commented. "She said 'I want to go the Olympics.'". Kayla Parker, a senior at Port St. Joe, has been a front runner for her school in the 100 meter hurdles, the 100 and 200 meter dash, and the long jump. The Chiles Capital City Championship was no different. Kayla, who has been a state Champion 3 years in a row, set new meet records in almost every event she participated in and earned the day's MVP track participant award. Kayla will run for the university of Kentucky next year. "It's a bittersweet moment for me," Kayla said. "I've run with my team since middle school and we are all good friends." Kayla is very excited about running in college. Fanequa Larry, also of Port Saint Joe, received the girls MVP for the field events. She jumped a Triple Jump distance of 11'7".
21 schools were represented bringing some good competition. There were many meet records broken throughout the day's events. D.J. Mann from Carrollton placed first in boys High Jump. He broke the previous record of 6'8" by half of an inch with a jump of 6'8.5". Caleb Ebbets had a pole vault height of 15'9 smashing the previous meet height of 15'0". Caleb was also the boys MVP for field events. Jonathan Jones and Broderick Snoddy shared the boys track MVP award. Jonathan participated in the 110 High Hurdles with a time of 14.09. Broderick took the first place win in the 200 Meter Dash, running 21.33.
Both the girls and boys 3200 Meter races were exciting. Carly Thomas from Chiles set the pace with an early lead. She led the entire race and broke the meet record with a time of 11:24.01. The boys race changed leads throughout the race between Leon and Wheeler. The last 800 meters was a fight and Wheeler retook the lead. During the last 400 meter stretch Leon pushed past Wheeler and was able to hold the lead to the finish.
The overall team win for the boys goes to Carrollton with 99 points. Leon was 2nd with 75 and Chiles came in a very close 3rd with 74 points. Chiles girls had a big leading win with 152 points. In 2nd was Port St. Joe with 96.5 points and Lincoln was 3rd with 44.