One of the biggest surprises and eye-catching performances out of the Golden South Series #2 this past Friday night at East Lake High School was the upset win in the girls 400-meter dash by Twaneise Johnson over the FHSAA 4A state track champion Kylah Buckle of North Port.
Coming in with a personal best of 56.60 compared to Buckle's 54.09, who we thought might even break 54 seconds coming into the meet, Johnson was not on the radar at all as far as one of the athletes to watch heading into the meet.
Part of the reason that she was so unknown coming into the meet is that we did not see her at any high school meets throughout the outdoor season or any season prior in Florida. She does not run high school track or for her school at Gainesville High School as a current junior.
Instead, Johnson took a different path growing up and developing in the club track circuit under the direction of her father famously known as "Coach Miami" throughout the state for the events that he puts on as well as organizes a small track club in V12 Athletics which his kids and family friends run under has been the avenue of competition up until this point for Twaneise.
Earlier in the season, Johnson actually got a rare opportunity to measure up against Buckle and a bunch of other top sprinters at IMG Academy in the Coach Miami hosted The Florida International track meet. In that meet, Johnson ran 56.77 in the 400 prelims and a PR of 24.66 in the 200. Buckle in the same meet ran 54.24 in the 400 finals.
A much different and faster Johnson in the 400 showed up on Friday night at East Lake High School as she clearly shrunk the gap that existed between her and Buckle at IMG back in late March to find herself in the lead thru the first 300 before Buckle seemed to have evened up with her in stride.
Johnson actually started out running longer distance runners at a younger age including cross country as well as competing in the 1500 and 800 on the track. She ran 2:17 to win an age group title at AAU Club Nationals as a 7th grader back in 2017. The distance base from her youth may have paid off as she was able to pull away from Buckle for the win in with the 8th fastest time run all season by any high schooler in Florida at 54.51.
The performance also ranks her 27th nationally in the event currently. She is looking to continue to drop her times in the 100, 200, and 400 later this summer as plans to compete thru the Junior Olympic Champs, but has not decided yet if she is going to do USATF in Jacksonville or AAU in Houston.
While college coaches often recruit athletes based on high school state meet results, which Johnson will never be found in, her times run elsewhere in club meets cannot be denied or overlooked now as she ascends up the national rankings lists defeating a state champion caliber athlete such as Buckle head to head.
If anything learned from the past year with the coronavirus and high school athletics taken away and put on hold for a while is that we should have alternative ways for high school-aged athletics to compete as Twaneise Johnson had already been thriving by means of a different route to achieve athletic success.
