By FRED CONLEY
T-H Sports Editor
JONESBORO -- The Cabot Panthers and West Memphis Lady Blue Devils are making a habit of winning track conference championships.
Thursday, at the AAAAA-East Conference Meet at Cooksey-Johns Field in Jonesboro, the Panthers won the boys' competition for the second consecutive year while the Lady Blue Devils won their third straight conference title.
The Forrest City Mustangs, third a year ago, finished second behind Cabot and just ahead of West Memphis.
Forrest City and Cabot were locked in a tie with 131 points each going into the final two events.
The Panthers claimed the title by scoring 32 points in the last two events -- 22 of that total coming in the two-mile run to finish with 163 points.
West Memphis' Sidney Tate won the boys' high point award, his second straight singles' title. Tate won the 200-meter dash, the triple jump and the high jump and took second in the long jump and third in the 400-meter run and fourth in the 100-meter dash.
Jonesboro held on to finish fourth.
The Lady Blue Devils rode the efforts of high-point athlete Megan Jones, who scored 48 of West Memphis' 161 points.
Jones won the 300-meter intermediate hurdles and the pole vault and placed second in the discus, third in the 100-meter low hurdles and ran one leg of the mile relay, helping the Lady Blue Devils to a second place finish in the event.
Jonesboro's Lady Hurricane held on to take second place with 115 points, led by sophomore Aqusha Anderson's 28 1/2 points.
*In other conference meets held Thursday, Osceola captured the AAAA-East boys' title at Marion.
The Seminoles finished with 140 points to hold off second-place Greene County Tech, which totaled 127 points.
Marion finished third and Newport took fourth while Wynne held on for fifth.
In the girls' side of the competition, the host team Marion Lady Patriots edged Green County Tech by a single point -- 92-91, to take the meet title.
Wynne ran third with 87 points, Batesville finished fourth, Nettleton was fifth, Osceola sixth, Newport seventh and Paragould finished eighth.
*At DeWitt, the Palestine-Wheatley Junior Patriots won the 6AA District Meet and had co-high point athletes.
Fred Leak and Rashan Barnes each finished with 36 points.
The Junior Patriots won three of the four relays -- the 400, 800 and mile.
The Palestine-Wheatley senior Patriots finished third behind Barton and Clarendon and qualified four for the upcoming State Meet to be held at Danville.
Charles Autry won the high jump and was second in the 110-low and 330-high hurdles.
Roman Harris won the shot while John Chapman and Steve Eldridge finished one-two in the pole vault.
*The P-W Junior Lady Patriots finished second behind Baton with 76 points.
Tonisha Wynne won the shot and Fallon Parker was second in the mile run.
The 800-meter relay team (Martina Applewhite, Chelsea Jumper, Jessica Smith and Wynne) ran second.
By FRED CONLEY
T-H Sports Editor
The West Memphis Lady Blue Devils are on a fast pitch mission.
Coach Jodi Fenter's team is trying to make the fast pitch softball state tournament cut.
Thursday, at the Forrest City Sports Complex, her Lady Blue Devils took another step toward that goal by shutting out Forrest City's Lady Mustangs 10-0 in five innings in AAAAA-East conference action.
It was the final regular season game for Forrest City, which finishes with a 3-19 overall record and winless in the conference at 0-14.
Meanwhile the Lady Blue Devils improve to 14-6 for the year and stand at 8-4 in the league and still in the state tournament hunt.
"We were swept by Jacksonville and Cabot, who are going to finish one-two in the league," said Fenter. "And we have two games next week against Jonesboro. We still like our chances at finishing third but we'll take fourth just to get to the state."
All Fenter had to do Thursday was put her sophomore pitcher, Rachael Waggerner on the mound.
Waggerner did the rest, holding the Lady Mustangs to just one hit -- a second inning single by Alicia Kennedy, who was left stranded at second base.
So dominating was Waggerner, that she faced only 16 Forrest City hitters in five innings -- only one over the limit. She did not walk a batter and struck out six.
After Kennedy's two out, second inning single, Waggerner retired the final 11 batters that she faced.
The Lady Mustangs went three and out in the first, third, fourth and fifth innings.
Jacksonville won the outright East conference title on Monday by shutting out Cabot 2-0.
The win gave Jacksonville a season sweep over Cabot. The Lady Devils will be a No. 1 seed into the state tournament.
Two years ago, Jacksonville finished in second place behind Cabot for the league crown.
Last season, Jacksonville split with the Lady Panthers and earned a share of the conference championship, but had to settle for the No.2 seed due to tiebreaker rules.
*The Forrest City Mustang baseball team will conclude their season on Tuesday, April 30, when the Mustangs travel to Cabot for a varsity conference doubleheader.
Today's nonconference game against Marion has been cancelled.