SPORTS

Unbeatable: Spain Park Girls wrestler Oliveira caps perfect season with state title Page 27 SPORTS

Thursday, February 10, 2022 ❖ OVER THE MOUNTAIN JOURNAL

Back-to-Back: Vestavia Hills’ West earns second straight Gatorade CrossCountry award Page 26

AHSAA STATE INDOOR TRACK CHAMPIONSHIPS

BUC’S SWEEP

Hoover Boys and Girls Claim 7A Championships; Spartan Girls Fall Short in 6A

By RuBin E. GRant

Hoover track coach Chris Schmidt was both excited and relieved after the 2022 Alabama High School Athletic Association State Indoor Track Championships last weekend at the Birmingham CrossPlex.

The Bucs boys and girls team swept the Class 7A state championships but in completely different ways.

The Hoover girls dominated, taking an early lead and never looking back en route to claiming their 10th girls state crown. They won with 119 points, well ahead of second-place HewittTrussville (76.33 points) and third-place Vestavia Hills (72). Spain Park (38) and Auburn (35) rounded out the top five.

The Hoover boys had to overcome a baton handoff that went awry in the 4x200-meter relay that Hoover was expected to win, resulting in a close battle the rest of the way and a strong challenge from rival Vestavia Hills.

The Bucs boys finished with 108 points to claim Hoover’s 11th boys state indoor championship. Vestavia Hills was second with 100 points. The Bucs have won seven state boys championships since 2013.

“It was a fun meet,” said Schmidt, in his first year as head coach after replacing legendary coach Devon Hind, who retired in the spring. “We were favored in both, but I thought the boys were going to give it away. It was stressful after the baton mishap. I’ve got a little more gray hair.

“I was a little more concerned about the girls going in, but they stepped it up and were amazing. They were on point in every single event and picked up bonus points in every event. That was fun to watch.”

The Bucs’ girls swept the three relays, the 4x200, 4x400 and 4x800.

The 4x200 team clocked 1:40.93, just 2/100ths of a second off the Class 7A Indoor State Meet record set by Hoover in 2016. The four runners, Jebreiya Chapman, Gabrielle Washington, Taylor Canada and Layla Wilson, also improved their best qualifying time by more than a second in the victory.

Hoover’s 4x400 team of Chapman, Canada, Washington and McKenzie Blackledge finished with a time of 4:00.98. Spain Park was second with a 4:04.95 time.

Hoover’s 4x800 team of Blackledge, Ashley Girouard, Daisy Luna and Lana Kate Hammonds won with a 9:40.60 time. Vestavia Hills was second, two seconds back at 9:42.87.

Luna also won the 400-meter dash with a 56.26 time. Spain Park’s MacKenzie Culpepper, who won the 800 meters race, was second, clocking 56.79.

Langley Jung cleared 5-06 in the high jump to take first place for the Bucs girls.

Journal photos by Jordan Wald

Above, Mountain Brook’s team of Hunter Anderson, Callie Kent, Mary Katherine Malone and Kennedy Hamilton won the 4x800 6A title with a time of 9:43.92. In the Class 6A boys completion, Homewood’s Spencer Lamb won the 60-meter hurdles in 8.30 seconds, below. Hoover’s Jay Avery won the long jump with a leap of 22-00.25 and the triple jump, going 48-08.75.

See TRACK, page 26

‘A Good Day’

Jags Take Down Bucs to Win Third State Bowling Championship

By RuBin E. GRant

Spain Park had to take down a familiar foe to claim its third boys state bowling championship.

The Jaguars went head-to-head with crosstown rival Hoover in the finals and prevailed in a thrilling match to claim the Class 6A/7A title in the Alabama High School Athletic Association 2022 State Bowling Championships Jan. 28 at the Alley Bowling Center in Gadsden.

“As we like to say at Spain Park, it’s always a good day to beat Hoover,” Spain Park coach Stephen Hobbs said.

It didn’t come easy. The Bucs came close to perfection in game three of the match, with its five bowlers knocking down 10 strikes in a row en route to a 2-1 lead in the finals.

Hoover bowlers A.J. Nelson, Connor Davis, Rhett Pearson, Carter Hughes and Alex Lee combined for two strikes each. But the bid for the AHSAA’s first perfect 300 game as a team came up short when the Bucs, coached by Dustin Edgar, left two pins standing on the 11th roll to finish with a state-record 288-203 victory.

The Jags were unfazed by the Bucs’ historic game. Spain Park’s strong lineup of Russell Partin, Lucas Mitchell, Cole Henson, Ethan Lee and Michael Kimble responded with nine strikes to win the next game 279-188 to tie the contest at 2-2. The Jags clinched the championship by taking game five 246-191 and game six 201-