It was a good year for Macon Middle School track and field.
At the Blue Ridge Conference Championship meet at Apple Valley Middle School May 7, nearly a dozen WNC teams gathered to administer bragging rights for the year. With a dramatic last-second win in the final event, the MMS boys claimed their first BRAC title in school history.
“On day one I addressed the team that our goal was to bring home a championship to Macon Middle, and I told the parents that in our parent meeting,” said head coach Coleman Tallent of his second year at the helm. “We had our first meet back in March, things were a little iffy, we had some adjustments to make, and then we had about a whole month off that was nothing but practice. The meet we came back after that month off, me and my other coaches were like, ‘We have a shot to win this,’ and sure enough our boys didn’t lose a meet the rest of the season.”
From just their second meet of the season, Tallent and his assistants knew the boys’ team could be special, boasting a deep stable of talent in both track and field events. Led by a core of veteran eighth-graders, the team had the makings of a future conference champion.
“They stepped up this year. One of our – I want to call them team leaders – didn’t even place top-10 last year in the spring events, and then he came back and every day worked his butt off,” said Tallent of sprinter Reid Laseter. “He won first place in the 400 and 200, and then we had a distance runner [Trey Dockery] who, every day at practice held himself and the younger kids accountable.
Every workout I could hear him saying stuff to them, right in the middle of them running. So, I kind of put it on them to lead the team since ultimately, they would be the ones competing.”
With school-record performances throughout the season from Laseter, Dockery and sprinter/long jumper Gabe Harrison, Macon looked like one of the BRAC’s best teams meet after meet. At the conference championships in Hendersonville May 7, a white-knuckle last-second finish gave the team its first-ever BRAC title.
“It ultimately came down to the [4x400-meter relay], which is the very last event,” said Tallent. “Trey dove at the finish line against Smoky [Mountain] and that got us 10 extra points, and we won by five. It was very nerve-racking. ... They were literally neck-and-neck, and they both fell over.”
In a virtual tie with Smoky Mountain on the anchor leg, Dockery was forced to take extraordinary measures, leaning forward over the finish line to save precious fractions of a second. The win pushed the Panthers past Polk to place first out of nearly a dozen teams.
In addition to the BRAC-Champion boys, Macon’s girls also impressed throughout the year, winning the conference meet’s 4x400-meter relay and setting school records in three events throughout the year. While the boys team will lose several key eighth-graders this summer, Tallent believes the girls team is set up for future success.
“I think the girls team is looking very good for next year,” he said. “They dealt with a lot of injuries this year, and we didn’t have one of our best girls [Suzanna Cabe] because she had a softball game the day of the conference championship. Three other ones got hurt that were keys to us – one was in eighth grade and the others were in seventh, so hopefully they’ll come back next year fully healthy and we’ll see what we can do with them.”