Lady Roadrunners Track Team Caps Best Season With 3rd Place Finish At SSAC Championship

By: Dean Thompson, Women's Cross Country & Track Coach

Women's Track & Field | 5/2/2021 8:45:00 PM

HATTIESBURG, Miss. - The Lady Roadrunners travelled to Hattiesburg, Miss., home of William Carey University, to compete in the Southern States Athletic Conference Championship meet. To say that the Lady Birds outperformed expectations is an understatement. Every athlete on the Dalton State roster scored points for the team in the two-day meet.

RECAP
DAY 1
The Lady Birds were led by Individual Conference Champions, freshman Riley Jo Ford (10,000 Meter Run), freshman Briana Ray (Pole Vault), sophomore Haley Tillery (3,000 Meter Steeplechase), sophomore Kathryn Vradenburgh (1500 Meter Run), and junior Alex Gass (5,000 Meter Run).

The team scored their highest point total in school history posting 123.5 points. That beat the old mark of 99 points set in 2018. Those points were good enough to carry them to a third-place finish as a team, also a school best.

The Roadrunners competed in several field events and two running events on Friday. The first event of the day was the High Jump. No one had ever completed a height in the High Jump for Dalton State.

First up was Kathryn Vradenburgh, middle distance runner turned high jumper for a few minutes. She was the first to clear a height. Not to be outdone, Vanessa Rivera cleared the opening height and then two more to set the school record at 1.45 meters. It was good enough for seventh place for Vanessa. Kathryn finished 10^th overall.

Then it was onto the 4X800 Meter Relay where Kathryn was joined by teammates, freshman Kayla Mattox, junior Rebecca Poe, and sophomore Kate Roberts. The team was seeded fourth, but they outperformed their seed time by a whopping 35 seconds to finish third and set a new school record by finishing in ten minutes flat. It was the first podium finish of the meet for the Roadrunners, but there would be many more to come.

Freshman Suzana Rivera took to the Discus circle and finished one place higher than her seed had predicted. It was good enough to give her an 8^th place finish and add a point to the team total.

Then came the 10,000 Meter run. The team of Riley Jo Ford, Alex Gass, and senior Kay Vradenburgh swept the podium with a 1,2,3 finish in the event. It was Riley Jo's second conference championship of her career, having won the cross-country championship in the Fall.

It was a solid first day of competition for the Roadrunners.

DAY 2
The first event for the ladies on day two was the Pole Vault, an event no former Roadrunner had ever attempted. Briana Ray set a personal best with a vault of 2.57 meters. It wasn't a conference record, but it was the best conference performance in several years.

The first running event of the day was the 3,000 Meter Steeplechase, an odd event where participants jump over 35 barriers while running nearly two miles. One of those barriers includes a pit of water on the other side. It takes a tough athlete to run the Steeplechase. The Roadrunners sent three such athletes to the starting line. They were led by Haley Tillery who won the event and just missed the conference record by 7 hundredths of a second. She was followed by a third place finish from Rebecca Poe, who had finished 4^th in the event two years ago. Rachel Ward had her best race of the year and finished 6^th overall in her first-ever try at the event.

Running the 4X100 Meter Relay at the Conference Championship for the first time in school history, the team of Vanessa Rivera, Briana Ray, Rebecca Poe, and Kayla Mattox lowered their own school record and finished in fourth place overall, just edged off the podium by a couple of seconds.

Kathryn Vradenburgh would be the star of the next running event for the Roadrunners. Running as the number two seed, Kathryn ran away from the field and set a new conference record for the 1500 Meters. Her finishing time of 4:49 is the best in Dalton State history. She was followed by a third-place finish from Riley Jo Ford, as well as fifth place finish from Kate Roberts. It was Kate's personal best by a long way! Kayla Mattox competed in the event and also ran a personal best.

It wasn't long before Kathryn, Kate, and Kayla were back on the track, joined by Haley for the 800 Meter Run. Kathryn and Kate both ran personal bests and finished 3^rd and 4^th overall. Kathryn's time was good enough to slightly lower her own school record. Haley and Kayla finished 1^st and 3^rd in their heat and ended up 9^th and 12^th overall.

The heat of the day is no time to run a 5,000 Meter Run, but that's just what they did next. The Roadrunners would send the podium-sweeping team from the previous night's 10K to the line with a tough field to battle. Just before the halfway mark of the race, Alex Gass took control and ran away from the field to finish in a time of 19:15, which was very fast under the hot conditions. Riley Jo battled back and forth with Isabel Valenzuela from Mobile, but she came out on top to finish second. Kay battled a little farther back to finish in exactly the place her entry time predicted she would finish, sixth, good enough for 3 more points.

The day finished as all track meets do, with the 4X400 Meter Relay. The team of Rebecca Poe, Haley Tillery, Kate Roberts, and Kathryn Vradenburgh finished fourth and missed the school record by just one second.

It was a great day. Overall, Riley Jo Ford scored a total of 24 points, eclipsing the 22 ½ points Roadrunner great, Nayeli Jacobo, scored in 2018.

QUOTES FROM COACH
Comments From Coach Dean Thompson:
"I was really proud of the ladies' effort at this meet. They came out with a chance to finish in the top three and they did it. It was a true team effort. Every person on the team scored at least one point."

"It was good to see us score points in field events for the first time in school history. We don't have a full track team, so it's tough to compete with the schools that have full teams, but we beat two teams with full squads today. They were really proud of what they accomplished today, and I might have shed a tear or two watching them do so well."

"It is an honor to coach such a hard-working bunch of ladies. The conference competition has gotten tougher every year I've been here, but our ladies rise a little higher each year."

"We had five individual champions on a team of twelve. It's difficult to find any track team with five champions, but near impossible to find in a group of twelve."

"As a coach, this is the kind of group you want to have. Sure, they're talented, but they have such great character too. And they get along well and have fun. At the end of the day, as hard they work, both in school and on the track, they're just good young women who care about each other and the people around them. They're special. And I'm really proud of them!"

"If all goes according to plan, we will have most of these athletes back again next year so we can try to get even better!"

Points scored by each athlete:
Riley Jo Ford                    24 points
Kathryn Vradenburgh       19.75 points
Alex Gass                    18 points
Kate Roberts               11.75 points
Haley Tillery                11.25 points
Briana Ray                   11.25 points
Kay Vradenburgh         9 points
Rebecca Poe               8.75 points
Rachel Ward               3 points
Kayla Mattox              2.75 points
Vanessa Rivera           2.75 points
Suzana Rivera             1 point

UP NEXT
Riley Jo Ford has qualified for the National Championships in the Marathon. That takes place in four weeks. Stay tuned for more from the sensational freshman!

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