McMillian does Troopers proud

CROWN POINT -- Each stride he took was powered by one thing working inside of Wirt sophomore sprinter Jarvis McMillian.

Good old-fashioned school spirit.

Good old-fashioned school spirit.

McMillian pulled off an impressive individual feat at Thursday's Crown Point Sectional. He won three races and ran the anchor leg of the Troopers' 400 relay, which finished third and qualified for next week's Valparaiso Regional.

McMillian pulled off an impressive individual feat at Thursday's Crown Point Sectional. He won three races and ran the anchor leg of the Troopers' 400 relay, which finished third and qualified for next week's Valparaiso Regional.

McMillian won the 100 and 200 meter dashes and also won the 400 meters despite having barely any recovery time from running his relay leg. His efforts accounted for nearly half of Wirt's 64 team points, which was good for a fourth-place team finish.

Merrillville won it with 139.5 points and a lot more athletes competing than Wirt, which will close after the school year.

"I thought about it before the meet, and I figured that since this was going to be my last year of running for Wirt High School, I just decided to give it my all and honor my school," he said. "Now, hopefully I can get down to state by winning all three of those events again (at the regional), so that Wirt can be known as one of the best schools in the state."

Wirt will close its doors after this school year, and McMillian will be running for another Gary school next spring. So Thursday was a bittersweet day for him, his teammates and Troopers coach Leroy Nelson.

"It took us a while to build up the track program, but we've finally got it built up," Nelson said. "It's just too bad that it won't matter next year."

For Merrillville, having quality strength in numbers paid off once again. The Pirates advanced athletes to the regional in every event except for the 3,200 meters and the 300 hurdles. And they likely would have advanced Craig Smith in the 300 hurdles had he not been injured.

Thrower Brian West had a big day for the Pirates, winning both the discus (146-7) and the shot put (55-11). West's 20 points were a big help in Merrillville eclipsing second-place Crown Point's 111 team tally.

"That was huge for us today," Pirates coach Jim Johnston said. "We had a lot of guys step up and perform."

Senior Melvin Davis was another one who stood out. He was thrown into the long jump recently and wound up second with a leap of 21-5�. Pole vaulter Byron Ferrell also starred for the Pirates by winning the vault after clearing 14 feet and nearly clearing 15 feet.

Lowell finished third with 76 points, and the Red Devils advanced seven individual events and the 1,600 relay team to regionals. Ray Skamay qualified for the regional in both hurdles despite recovering from flu-like symptoms.

Other standout performances included Crown Point's three relay teams, which all won their races, and the Bulldogs' duo of Chris Shellenberger and Brian Witt. The CP long distance pair finished 1-2 in the 3,200 meters to give the Bulldogs 18 team points in that event. They also ran in CP's winning 3,200 relay, which set the sectional record.

The team of Kyle Davis, Shellenberger, Witt and Andrew Facemayer completed that race in 8:09.92, which bested the previous record of 8:10.51 that was just set last year.

"I'm really happy for them because I know they've been working really hard to lower their times," Crown Point coach Keith Iddings said. "They did a terrific job."

Lew Wallace senior Damion McGee, out for his first season of track, won the high jump by clearing 6-10, which easily bested the state standard height of 6-6. McGee was a standout basketball player for the Hornets, who no longer has AAU basketball as a time conflict with track.

"I've been begging him to come out for track for three years," Lew Wallace boys coach Charles Jones said. "This is his first year, and he nearly cleared seven foot out here. He's planning to play basketball in college, but if he gets seven foot he may be high jumping instead."