With their efforts at Friday’s 1A Midwest Regional track meet at Davie County, two Stanly teams, along with a number of individual athletes, qualified for the state meet.

The Albemarle men’s track team won its second straight regional championship, besting Mount Airy by one point in the standings, while on the women’s side, North Stanly edged out Albemarle for fourth place.

The top four finishers in events at regionals qualified for this week’s state meet at North Carolina A&T Friday and Saturday.

Men’s Results

Albemarle beat Mount Airy 78-77 to win the Midwest Regional title. Queens Grant (59) was third, followed by Union Academy (55).

Antonio Burns took first place in the long jump for the Bulldogs with a distance of 20-feet, 3.5-inches — two inches beyond the efforts of his teammate, Josh Smith. Burns also placed fourth in the high jump at 5-feet, 10-inches.

Josh Smith gave Albemarle a first-place finish in the 300-meter hurdles, finishing in 41.33 seconds.

Josh’s brother, Julius, took first in the 100-meter dash in 10.74 seconds for the Bulldogs, as well as the 200-meter dash (22.03).

Albemarle’s 4×200 meter relay team of Josh Megson, Jaquavious Simon, Malachai Baldwin and Da’Sean Horne placed third with a 1:35.16.

Other top finishers at the regionals included South Stanly’s Jitavis Huntley, who took first in the shot put (48-feet-10.25) and the discus (143-feet-2). His teammate, Kyle Ziebarth, qualified for states with a 45-foot-6 effort on the shot put, good for second place.

Chamar Watkins also qualified for states with a six-foot effort in the high jump finishing second. He also finished fourth in the 100-meter dash (11.13 seconds).

Watkins also ran anchor on the Comets’ 4×100-meter relay team which finished first. Watkins, Wes Reynolds, Bailey Baker and D.J. Rhone finished in 44.62 seconds.

Women’s Results

North Stanly scored 54.5 points, besting Albemarle by 5.5 points for fourth in the team standings. North Stokes won the regional title with 120 points followed by Winston-Salem Prep (85.5) and Pine Lake Prep (83).

The Comets’ Carlee Dixson and Nicole Lowder both qualified for states in the high jump, finishing third and fourth, respectively.

Mallory Russell qualified for North in the 100-meter hurdles. Her time of 17.05 seconds placed her in second, .1 seconds behind Makayla Rogers of North Stokes.

The Comets’ 4×200 meter team of Colbie Lentz, Emily Almond, Brinn Kimrey and Taegan Lowder took third at regionals with a 1:52.22.

Lentz, Almond, Lowder and Alex Childress took first with a 4:22.25 in the 4×400-meter relay.

Lowder also took second in the 400-meter dash with a 1:00.66.

In other results, Albemarle’s Somajhe Porter and Armani Baldwin finished first and third in the 100-meter dash. Porter took the gold medal with a time of 12.56 seconds while Baldwin finished with a 12.69. She also took second in the 200-meter dash in 26.57 seconds, qualifying for regionals.

Porter added an additional first-place regional finish in the 300-meter hurdles with a time of 47.99, winning by 1.21 seconds.

The Bulldogs’s 4×100-meter relay team of Baldwin, Porter, Armanie Sellers and Zycoria Tillman qualified for the state meet with a 52.69 effort.