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WOODVILLE — Wilkinson County Christian Academy’s varsity girls’ track team followed up its first-place finish at the MAIS Class 3A South State Track Meet in late April with an impressive second-place finish in Class 3A at the MAIS Overall Track Meet earlier this month.

WCCA’s girls’ team with a total of 72 ½ points to finish second in Class 3A behind powerhouse Desoto School, which ran away from the competition and racked up a stunning 176 total points in the team competition.

The MAIS Overall Track Meet was held on Friday, May 5 and Saturday, May 6 with the field events taking place at Jackson Academy in Jackson that Friday and the running events that Saturday at Jackson Preparatory School in Flowood.

Unfortunately, WCCA track coach Mike McGraw was unable to be with his teams that weekend. He said in a phone interview last Friday morning that his wife fell the night before he was to be at Overall and had to take her to an area hospital. He said he was really pleased with how the girls’ team did considering the circumstances it had to deal with.

“They did really well without a coach. Some of our parents took over they did well preparing them,” McGraw said. “They worked hard and they were competitive. They were really trying hard to get that runner-up trophy, which they did. We feel good about it. Desoto’s really strong. There was nothing we could do about them.”

Ann Patin won the 800-meter run in a time of 2:34.97 while Kylie Bolden broke her own school record in the triple jump she set last year and finished in first place with a jump of 33 feet and five inches. McGraw said that her previous school record was 32 feet and nine inches.

Seniors and twin sisters Mckenzie and Elizabeth Bryant fared well in their events as well. In the shot put, Mckenzie finished third with a throw of 28 feet and two inches and Elizabeth came in fourth place with a throw of 26 feet event. In the discus, Mckenzie ended up in fourth place with a throw of 96 feet and seven niches while Elizabeth wound up in sixth place with a throw of 72 feet and two inches.

Ava Randall, who won the 100-meter hurdles at the Class 3A South State Track Meet that was held at Canton Academy on Wednesday, April 26 and Saturday, April 29, ran a personal-best 18.78 seconds in that event at Overall, but was only good enough for fourth place.

WCCA’s boys’ track team didn’t fare near as well in Class 3A at the Overall Meet that it did at South State. The Rams came in a disappointing 11th place with just 28 total points. The best finish for them at Overall was by Jacob Sessions, who came in fourth place in the 300-meter hurdles with a time of 45.13 seconds.

“The girls won Class State and the boys finished second. The boys really ran out of legs (at Overall). They basically got tired. They went back and forth between track, baseball and tennis,” McGraw said. “The boys didn’t accomplish a whole lot at State, but the finished second at South State.

“We were just late getting them together. I didn’t have many varsity boys. We had a lot of junior varsity boys and we didn’t know how to mix them. They worked really hard and had a great day at South State.

Sessions won both the 300-meter hurdles and the long jump and the Rams won the 4×400-meter relay at South State.