The Spartan Invitational hosted by Miami Southridge High School in Miami turned out to be one of the fastest meets of the weekend in Florida including a total of 51 MileSplit national elite performances with the highlights seeing several national leading and state best times.
Mekhi Gammons of Hialeah-Miami Lakes rebounded from an upset defeat in his speciality event of the 400 meter dash at the Louie Bing Invitational last weekend to British Wilkerson of St. Thomas Aquinas by winning the 400 meter dash in a season best time of 47.04 which ranks second fastest in Florida and the nation behind only Aidan Dixon of Port Orange Atlantic.
Later in the 200 meter dash, Gammons had an even more impressive time clocking a wind-legal US #1 time of 21.15 for his second race victory on the day. Not far off his 21.04 PR from last spring in the 200 by the University of Georgia commit.
The Miami Northwestern boys showed out at the Louie Bing Invitational sweeping the relays and nearly did the same this weekend at Southridge's Spartan Invitational if not for Christopher Columbus spoiling those plans in a thrilling battle between the two Miami schools in the 4x800 meter relay with Columbus winning in US #3 7:56.43 over Northwestern at US #4 7:56.52 for the top two times in Florida.
Miami Northwestern would get revenge later though in the 4x400 meter relay on Columbus (2nd, US #6 3:17.56) defeating last year's 4A state champions in the event by three seconds with a nation's best time of 3:14.82. In between those two races, Miami Northwestern also won the 4x100 meter relay with a season best and US #5 clocking of 41.56. Only American Heritage at 41.10 from the Louie Bing Invitational has run faster this season from Florida.
The theme of last week's Louie Bing Invitational was the rise of freshmen star talent in South Florida. Kaj Baker, the ninth grader from Somerset Academy, who won the 200 meter dash last week in a speedy 21.24 personal best last week at Louie Bing followed up that with another major victory in the sprints at the Spartan Invitational clocking a US #5 wind-legal time of 10.61 in the 100 meter dash.
One of the more exciting finishes of the meet came in the boys 800 as the Miami Northwestern duo of Daniel Jean-Charles and Devin Jones took the field out thru the first 400 and attempted to hold on for a 1-2 finish off the final turn, but Marc Dabby of Columbus rallied on the final straightaway to sprint past both for a 1:56.48 win.
The host school Miami Southridge really dominated the girls meet led by their state leading 4x100 meter relay squad dropping their season best time down to a US #9 clocking of 47.11.
Several members of that relay also enjoyed individual victories including Cynteria James as a double winner in the 100 (US #3 11.90) and 200 (US #1 23.68) with wind-legal times that rank her among the top 3 in the country for both event and national leader in the 200 meter dash.
Runner-up to James in the 200 with a US #3 clocking personal best of 23.90 was teammate Somiyah Braggs, who also won the 400 meter dash earlier in the day with another all-time best performance at 55.34.
James was not the only double individual winner from the Southridge squad as hurdler Takiyah Ferguson swept her events taking the 100 meter hurdles in a photo finish race with herself and Miami Carol City's Ty'Yanah Adams both timed at 14.72, but going down to the thousandths of a second to determine the winner between the two. Ferguson had a slightly buffer in her margin of victory in the 400 meter hurdles later in the evening with her first place time of 1:03.55 and teammate Kendalle Sands trailing her half of a second back in for second place at 1:04.19.
Southridge sophomore Leandra Ferrell dropped 9 seconds off her season opening 800 meter race from Louie Bing Invite to win the Spartan Invite with a 2:19 personal best. The Southridge girls finished off their successful day dipping under 4 minutes to win the 4x400 meter relay with a time of 3:57.
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