Katia Seymour and Tyrese Cooper proved just how fast Florida really is bringing home a combined five gold medals in the sprints and a record setting final day for Sunshine State athletes at the AAU National Club Championships. Seymour kicked off the party by barely missing out on a meet record in the 17-18 year old 100m dash. Her time of 11.67 into a -1.2 m/s wind was just off her semifinal MR time of 11.64.
Event 17 Women 100 Meter Dash 17-18 year old
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Club Natl: # 11.64 7/15/2016 Ka'Tia Seymour, Florida East
Name Year Team Finals Wind Points
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Finals
1 Ka'Tia Seymour 97 Florida East 11.67 -1.2 10
2 Caitlan Tate 98 Mark Trail F 11.84 -1.2 8 Next up for the rising senior from Palatka High School was the 200m dash that featured a must-see match up between Seymour (2A state champion) and 4A state champion Amuru Patterson who has had her number at the 100m distance. This one however was all Seymour, clocking a new meet record by over two-tenths of a second, finishing in 23.26s ahead of Patterson's 23.76.
The story of the day of the boy's side was Tyrese Cooper. What can be said about this youngster that already hasn't been said? Another meet, more gold medals, more nationally ranked times, and more records being set. Cooper kicked off the party by improving on his meet record from earlier in the week in the 100m dash. Once again it was fellow Floridian Anthony Schwartz battling him to the line to produce stellar times of 10.46 and 10.59. Rising sophomore Seneca Milledge was third in 10.83s.
Next up for "Smoke" was the quarter-mile. Cooper demolished the field to run the third sub 46s tim in his career, and his second fastest ever, 45.86s. The time wasn't even the fastest of the day though as that title belonged to Elija Goodwin of Georgia who ran a US#3 45.83s to win and set a new meet record in the 17-18 year old division.
Jamal Walton was second in 46.08 which also would have been a new meet record. Cooper and Walton both ran for Miami Gardens XPress as youngsters. Walton, who is headed to Poland for the IAAF World U20 Championships (World Juniors), competed Saturday for the Teon Elite Track Club which many American Heritage athletes are a part of. He attended Everglades High School this season, but took to Twitter after saying he and Cooper might be heading to the same high school in 2017 which could be dreadful news to other track teams around the state.
Cooper closed out his AAU Nationals Club Championship experience with a 20.69s 200m dash after running 20.69 in the prelims. Those two times are the two fastest wind-legal marks in his high school career. He ran 20.46 (2.2 m/s) at the FSU Seminole Invitational.
If you are counting, he broke the 15-16 age group record in the 100m dash twice, 200m once, and 400m dash twice. That is five meet records in the span of one week! Where does Tyrese Cooper rank among Florida's best sprinters? He has to be right up there and is on a path to be the best of all-time.
The last event of the day didn't come without their own set of fireworks. The E.O.T.O Elite club team set meet records on both the girls and boys side of the 17-18 year old 4x400m relay. The girls ran 3:49.55 while the boys broke an 11 year old meet record with their time of 3:11.53! Coach Tyrone Giscombe had this to say afterwards about his relay squads who will continue on to AAU JO's in the coming weeks.
"I thought that the girls did an awesome job got behind early and fought hard to come back. If we get out faster we could go 3:40 mid to low. The boys lost Brandon Cachon after the QF. He strained his hamstring and it's nothing to major, but we shut him down for the week . We definitely could have went 3:09 or better had he been on it but the fellas ran really well through adversity and confrontation to run a still fast 3:11 and to become the club championship record holders."
