Knowing his team had a chance to win their second straight Track and Field State Championship, Owensboro Middle School head coach Anthony Tate turned to his 4×800 relay team and asked them to score two points. In response, they rewarded their team with three points, a key turning point in the Red Devils winning their second straight state Championship and the school’s seventh overall title.
“Once again, I didn’t know what I had at the beginning of the season, but I knew I had some decent runners,” Tate said. “…It was just different. It was people picking up the pieces. Like I said, I didn’t know what we had. We were winning all of the meets during the regular season, but come state that’s different. You have to score at least 48-50 points, and we finished with 51. It was good to see the kids perform.”
Owensboro finished with 51 points, beating out second-place Bowling Green (45) and third-place Green County (36).
Will Cook and Zayden Baker set the tone for the Red Devils, finishing first and second in the discus with throws of 151.4 and 146.2. Gavin Walker finished second in the high jump, while Baker was third in the shot put. Malik Moorman (5th, pole vault), Demarins McFarland (8th, javelin throw), Aaron Jackson (14th, triple jump), and Israel Epison (18th, shot put) rounded out the team’s top field event finishes.
On the relay side, they finished second in the 4×100, 5th in the 4×200, and 6th in the 4×800. Gavin Baxter was 15th in the 100 hurdles and 21st in the 300 hurdles, while Jamil Waddy was 7th in the 100 and 8th in the 200.
At the start of the 4×400 relay, coaches approached Tate to congratulate him on his team’s second straight championship.
“I guess they had already done the math and figured it out,” Tate said. “I didn’t want to know because that is one of those superstitious things with me. I didn’t want to know.”
While he is riding the high from the win, Tate already has his eyes set on who is returning to his team next year and how they can defend their title. He also credits his success to his impressive coaching staff.
“I didn’t do this by myself,” Tate said. “I like to throw the other coaches in there, like Matt Douglas and Sally Burgess, and there are two KWC coaches that helped me out. I call them Coach T and Coach Q.”
