Defending state champion Milwaukee King ready for another run at girls title

Mark Stewart
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Whitefish Bay senior Cami Davre won three events at the Germantown Sectional on Thursday

GERMANTOWN – The talk started last year on the ride home.

     Milwaukee King’s girls track and field team had just won the WIAA Division 1 state title, and long before they’d made it back to school the conversation turned to the next year. They set the bar high.

     “We want it. We want it,” senior hurdler Siarah Jones said. “We all have this same goal. We want to win that championship. … We all got our mind set on bringing home another gold ball.”

     Thursday the Generals took a major step toward making that goal a reality. King won the Germantown Sectional, qualifying in every running event it entered and posting times or distances that give them a good chance of scoring in a number of events at the WIAA state meet June 2-3 at Memorial Stadium on the campus of UW-La Crosse.

     King won six events. Sophomore Makayla Jackson was part of four of those wins as she took the 100 meters in 12.34 seconds and the long jump with a mark of 19 feet 1½ inches. She teamed up with freshman Amari Brown, senior Mariah Williams and freshman CaMarii Tellis to win the 400 relay in 47.81 and earlier in the meet teamed with Tellis, junior Jayla Abdullah and sophomore Rosie Cramer to win the 800 relay in 1 minute 41.35 seconds.

      Overall it was a meet for champions. The sectional featured three other state champions and they all head back to La Crosse with a solid chance of defending their titles.

     * Whitefish Bay senior Cami Davre, the three-time defending state champion in the 800 and 1,600, won those events in 2:14.75 and 5:01.11, respectively. She also qualified in the 3,200 for the first time, winning in 10:59.92. She’ll arrive at state with the top times for the season in all three events, according to the wisconsintrackonline.com state honor roll.

     * Nicolet senior David Dunlap, the defending 200 champion, continued his late-season charge by winning that event in 21.62 and the 100 in 10.95. He was most excited about the 400 relay, though. He teamed up with juniors Kamari Clayton and John Ford and senior Dakari Williams to win in 41.81. That group owned the top time in the state entering the day (41.65) and was the only team to go faster than 42 seconds.

     * Germantown senior Shon Pratcher, the defending champion in the long jump, thought he had that title wrapped up with a jump of 22-4, but Sussex Hamilton’s Ty Olejnik posted a mark of 22-7 on his final jump to take the lead. The advantage was short-lived as Pratcher popped a 23-2¾ on his final jump to win the event. Pratcher also took the triple jump (45-1).

     Other standouts from the day included:

      * Milwaukee Morse-Marshall senior Cory Folds, who won the 300 intermediate hurdles in 39.17, a time that was one-hundredth of a second off the state best entering the day.

      * Arrowhead senior Cole Sandovld took the 1,600 (4:16.89) and 800 (1:55.24).

      * Wisconsin recruit Bianca Stubler of Sussex Hamilton won the 400 (55.09) with her fastest time of the season, took second in the 200 (24.83) and teamed up with sophomores Morgan Price and Rachel Passow and junior Megan Jansett to win the 1,600 relay in 3:56.21, a time that would have topped the latest honor roll.

      * The following relays also posted times that would rank No. 1 in the state: Oconomowoc’s boys 1,600 (3:21.63) and 3,200 (7:54.57), Menomonee Falls' boys 800 (1:28.93) and Arrowhead’s girls 3,200 (9:28.24).

       As for King, its 800 relay time beat the state-best mark it entered the day with. The only long jump better than Jackson’s mark Thursday was the 19-3½ she won the regional with Monday. Jones had her best day in the 300 low hurdles. Her winning time of 44.65 would have topped the time atop the Division 1 state honor roll.

      "I’d say I’m very proud of them,” King senior Kiersten Walker said. “There is a lot of dedication this year. There is a lot of hard work. We knew we were seeded pretty fast in our sectional and regional, but we were like that’s not guaranteed. I think everyone is serious this year. Everyone is on the same page.”