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PHOTO SUBMITTED The Girls Track and Field team 2023 State Champions are the Brookhaven High Panthers.

PHOTO SUBMITTED Middle Sierra Edwards, and Chrisiyonna Quarles at right.

Brookhaven's Zyquevia Winters

PHOTO SUBMITTED On left, Kema Roberts.

PHOTO SUBMITTED From left, Jakeriyah Pendelton, Ariyana Graham, Jasmine Robertson and Ramie Stovall.

FILE PHOTO Isabella Iles.

Title defended.

On Wednesday the Brookhaven High School girls’ track and field team ran it back-to-back by winning the MHSAA 5A State Championship for a second straight year at Pearl High School.

The event had been delayed from the previous Friday due to wet weather.

A deep team with talent in several events helped the Panthers hold off the field.

BHS won two races — the 4×800-relay race and 300-meter hurdles — but had team members find the podium in a myriad of events to help push their point total up by showcasing a large group of diverse athletes.

The 4×800 relay team defended their title in the event for a second straight year. Running the relay for the Panthers were sophomore Jakeriyah Pendleton, sophomore Ariyana Graham, senior Ramie Stovall and junior Jasmine Robertson.

The team beat their competitors from New Hope by nine seconds.

Robertson finished in second place in the 800-meter run behind Hannah Mitchell of Pearl River Central and Stovall was the second placed finisher in the 1,600-meter run, also finishing behind Mitchell.

Junior Sierra Edwards won the 300-meter hurdles with a time of 45.01-seconds. Edwards edged out her junior teammate Chrisiyona Quarles by two tenths of a second as Quarles got the silver medal with a 45.03-second effort.

Quarles also made the podium as the third placed finisher in the 200-meter dash behind seniors from Ridgeland High and Cleveland Central.

Edwards and Quarles finished in second and third place respectively in the 100-meter hurdles.

BHS got a podium finish from 8th grader Isabella Iles, who finished third in the 3,200-meter finals behind Mitchell and a freshman from Neshoba Central.

Sophomore Zyquevia Winters finished third in the long jump for the Panthers and freshman Kema Roberts earned a third placed finish in the discus for BHS.

The Brookhaven High track and field teams are coached by Darien Dorsey, Tonya Johns, Jocelyn Robinson and Demario Richard.

“We knew we graduated a lot of speed last year,” said Dorsey of what it took to repeat. “We focused on field events, hurdles, and our distance runners this year. We had major depth in those areas, so we were able to overcome that lack of sprinters within our team.”

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