The AHS track team and Northern Region Champions competed in the state meet on June 3 and 4 at the Sports Backers Stadium in Richmond. The team performed well, placing fifth overall out of 65 teams represented in the state, despite the fact that some seniors found it to difficult to balance the state meet with Prom, which was also held on June 3.

In the field, junior Ali Ali Musa competed in the discus throw, and threw an impressive 138 feet and 11 inches. Unfortunately, Northern Region Champion for shotput Joel Hoisington had to come in on June 4, the morning after prom to throw and his performance was affected. He still managed to finish eighth overall scoring for the team.

AHS’s star mid-distance runner and All-American junior Ahmed Bile performed exceptionally well, winning another State Championship in the 1600-meter race (mile) with a time of 4:09.48. Bile also competed in the 800 meter run, which he placed third in the nation for during indoor track, however as it was a short 45 minutes from this hard mile, he did not perform as well as he could have and finished in 2 minutes, a full nine seconds away from his personal record of 1:51.

On the track, star sprinter and All-American senior JP Jenkins was presented with an extremely difficult situation as he was forced to compete in the preliminaries for 110 meter hurdles on June 3, come back down to Springfield for Prom, and then go back to finish competing; however, he managed to run a fast time of 14.06 seconds in the 110 hurdles to place second in the state.

The team placed fourth in the state in the 4×100 meter relay, consisting of junior Walter Manlen, sophomore Alex Ellison, senior Josh Jean-Jacques and junior Roland Andoh.

Ellison competed in the 100 meter dash as well, running a blistering time of 10.86 seconds. Junior Dylan Van Balen also competed in the 100 meter dash, and ran an impressive time of 11.09 seconds.

Andoh competed in the 200 meter dash as well; however, regrettably it was not his best day as he ran a time of 22.62 seconds, compared to his personal best of 22.12 seconds. Ellison also ran the 200 meter dash, running a time of 22.37 seconds.

“We had a pretty good meet. Next year hopefully we’ll do even better,” Andoh said.

This is not the end for some athletes; Bile will continue his season by competing at nationals once again, and Jenkins may continue to nationals as well.

Next year, the team hopes to continue to be successful with many of the athletes such as Andoh and Ellison returning, and hopefully even more fast runners emerging from the training and program put together by Head Coach Sean Miller, distance coach Dave O’Hara and throwing coach Bob Sykes.

While the team could have done a little better, they still competed exceptionally well; running amazing times and doing better than they have at a state meet in years.