AUSTIN -- Members of the Thrall High School girls' varsity track and field team competed in the UIL Class 2A State Championships this past Friday as the Tigerettes had a very strong showing.
The Tigerettes would come up just short of winning the big trophy as a team and even in some of the individual events.
Starting off was the pole vault event, where Avery Koonce would flex her muscles in this event yet again. Koonce jumped 10 feet 6 inches to finish in fourth place, but was right on the heels of third place.
Koonce finished with the same height as the third-place finisher but had fewer missed attempts, thus moving Koonce down a spot. The Tigerettes put it in the rearview though and moved on with the meet with the triple jump event being next.
Malaina Grissom, was in the blocks for the Tigerettes in this event, and jumped 35 feet and 3-and-a-half inches. This would earn Grissom eighth place in the event, and while that seems low, she was only a few inches away from being in the top five.
Chugging along to the 4x100 relay, Koonce and Grissom joined teammates Kassi Jackson and Nevaeh Irvin for the race. The group ran the race in 49.38 seconds to finish in sixth place.
While the Tigerettes would not come away with a state championship trophy, they still walked away with a big accomplishment. The relay team broke the school record with their time in the 4x100-meter, and with all of them being juniors or lower, they will have plenty of opportunity to break the record again.
Next was the 100, and Koonce was back in the mix for the Tigerettes. Koonce finished in 12.12 seconds, which landed her in second place.
The runner in first finished in 11.99 seconds, just barely beating out Koonce and taking the top spot on the podium. Irvin closed out the meet for the Tigerettes in the 400, finishing the race in one minute and one second.
This would give Irvin the seventh place spot in the race, but in such a tight and close race Irvin was a few seconds from being one of the top runners. Only a freshman, Irvin has plenty to master her craft and finish higher than seventh place.
