COLUMBIA – With all of the events except for the pole vault scored in the 5A Division II state track and field meet at Richland Northeast High School Saturday, the Westwood boys team held a 94-88 advantage over Fort Mill in the point totals.
The Fort Mill girls team, with 73.2 points, had already been announced as the winners of the girls half of the meet. Meanwhile, as first-place North Myrtle Beach pole-vaulter Kempf Dylan tried to break the state-record vault of 16 feet 9 inches, the Westwood and Fort Mill crowd waited in the infield for the final pole vault results—Yellow Jackets vaulters Jack Allen and Padyn Gossett-McDowell competed in the event.
When the officials in the score tent finished entering the results, Allen and Gossett-McDowell were tied for fifth place—and earned 3.5 points apiece.
Those seven points handed the state championship to Fort Mill, which won 95-94 over the Redhawks.
Westwood head coach Rod Lorick said that with all of the events the Redhawks won or placed in complete, falling one point short of winning state in spite of the gold medals and high finishes can hurt the kids—but it can also motivate the team to work harder and smarter over the next year.
“It’s a disappointment we came in second. We worked hard, we deserved it, but we go back to the drawing board,” he said. “With all we did this year, it wasn’t without a reason. I’ve got a lot of juniors coming back, a lot of guys who ran the 100 and 200 are juniors, so we’ve got something to look forward to next year.”
Lorick said that while the Redhawks team is filled with sprinters, the team works hard at filling out distance running spots and field events. Pole vaulting, he added, can be hard to get young people interested in trying.
“It’s hit or miss every year,” Lorick said. “Some kids are scared to do it. We try to fill every field event that we can.”
Other than the Redhawks’ 4×800 team of Kameron Moore, Aiden Adkins, Bobby Singleton and Bobby Quick taking second place behind Fort Mill with a time of 8:02.33, Westwood had no point placings in the distance runs.
Westwood instead put the meet in the hands of its deep trove of sprinters. The Redhawks were without one sprinter, Jamey Patterson, who was injured during the qualifier last week and whom Lorick said could have made a difference with placings in the 100 and 200 dashes.
“It kind of hurt us a good bit,” Lorick said. “We knew were coming in heavy with sprinters and they did what they had to do. Patterson qualified for 100 and 200. It was a big hurt, but I didn’t want to injure him any further. But congratulations to Fort Mill for showing up and doing what it takes. One point is one point.”
Even without Patterson, Westwood dominated the sprints, getting 58 points in the 100, 200, and 400 dashes, and the 110 hurdles alone.
Jayden Wilson took gold in both the 100 and 200, with times of 10.59 in the100 and 21.53 in the 200. Behind Wilson in the 100 was Myles Bryant in second place. Jayden Boyd took third in the 200 and Bryant took fourth.
Boyd won the 400 dash with a time of 48.13, and Justin Washington finished fourth.
Junior Kehinde Howard placed fourth in the 110 hurdles.
The 4×100 team of Wilson, Bryant, a runner for Patterson, and Boyd added another 10 points with a first-place finishing time of 41.46.
In field events senior Leon Morgan placed eighth in the long jump. Senior Kyzer Hannah placed eighth in the shot put and senior Jeremiah Whitmore placed third in the discus.
Westwood’s 4×400 team of Myles Bryant, Patterson, Justin Washington, and Jayden Wilson held on to win the event with a time of 3:20.52, but the Yellow Jackets team of Grant Dubak, Gremillion, Amico, and McCants came in a close second—11 hundredths of a second—to set up the wait for the scores in the pole vault.
The boys win was the fourth for Whitaker-coached teams in the 2025-2026 school year. Whitaker also coached the boys and girls cross country teams to wins last fall.
“We knew before we got here how close it was going to be,” Fort Mill head coach Lee Whitaker said. “Westwood is built differently from us and we knew they were going to score a lot of points in certain events, and I knew we were going to score a lot of points in certain events.”
With victories and placings in the individual and relay distance runs, the Yellow Jackets piled up 63 points and three gold medals.
The Westwood girls track and field team finished ninth with 34 points. Alysa Jones took gold in the 400 hurdles with a time of 1:01.87, and the 4×400 team of Carayha Tebo, Jurnei Clark, London Brooks and Jones took gold with a time of 3:55.63.
Other top finishers include Christina Tyndal, who placed sixth in the 800 run, Gabrielle Davis, who placed fifth in the 100 hurdles and seventh in the long jump, and Rebecca Ashley, who placed fourth in the pole vault.