By FRED CONLEY
T-H Sports Editor
JONESBORO -- Jonesboro Annie Camp has made a habit of winning district track meets thid year.
Annie Camp dominated the AAAAA-East Junior High Conference Meet on Friday winning both the boys and girls championships at Cooksey-Johns Field.
The win was the third straight for the Annie Camp Whirlwinds while the Lady Whirlwinds won for the seventh straight time this season.
The Annie Camp girls were just one point shy of posting 200 points, almost unheard of in the junior high track and field ranks, scoring 199 points.
The Lady Whirlwinds finished first in all but five of the 14 events. Jermece Smith, who tallied 32 points in the meet, had three first-place finishes.
The Lady Whirlwinds won two of the three relays, running first in the 400-meter and the two-mile relay and second in the mile relay.
The Forrest City Lady Mustangs finished second with 76 points -- a difference of 123 points. Freshman LeJoy Walker walked away with high point honors scoring 38 points.
The Jonesboro MacArthur girls finished with 43 points to tie for fourth place and Blytheville had 18 for sixth.
In the boys' competition, the meet went as expected as the two favorites -- Annie Camp and Forrest City -- went head-to-head.
A week earlier, at the Hoffman Relays, Annie Camp held off the Junior Mustangs in the final event, the mile relay, to win by10-points.
Friday, the Whirlwinds took charge early and won the boys title with 138 points.
Forrest City finished second with 102 points while MacArthur had 81 and Blytheville finished with 54.
Forrest City's Eric Walker won the long jump with a leap of just more than 20 feet and Richard Flenory won the shot put to get the Junior Mustangs off and running in the field events. Otha Hall was second in the discus.
Walker finished first in the 200- and 400-meter runs on his way to edging Annie Camp's Damron Thomas for high point honors. Walker finished with 36 points.
Cory Embry won the 100-meter run and is undefeated in that event this season. He ran second to Walker in the 200-meter. Jamar Isom ran third in the mile and Zach Jones finished fifth.
The Junior Mustang 400-meter relay team ran first while the mile relay team was third and the two-mile relay team finished fourth.
Tim McDonald was fifth in the 110-meter hurdles while John Washington ran sixth in the event.
Annie Camp's Brandon Coleman ran to a first-place finish in the 110-meter hurdles and Darrell Jackson took first in the high jump.
Kyle Rothgery had a throw of 125 feet 5 inches to win the discus.
Damron Thomas rolled up 26.5 points despite no individual first-place finishes.
He finished second in the 400 and the long jump and a third in the discus (120-4).
Two MacArthur competitors recorded first-place finishes. Josh Parkey was first in the 1,600-meter run beating second-place finisher Danny Salazar of Annie Camp by more than 42 seconds.
MacArthur's Drew Bell, who holds the MacArthur school record at 13-2, easily won the pole vault by clearing 13 feet on his third attempt.
For the Junior Mustangs, it was the third, second-place finish of the season for the team against two first-place finishes this year.
By FRED CONLEY
T-H Sports Editor
WALNUT RIDGE -- The Palestine-Wheatley Lady Patriots are just one game away from reaching the Class AA Fast-Pitch State Tournament.
Saturday, in first-round action at the Class AA Region 4 Tournament in Walnut Ridge, the No. 2 seeded Lady Patriots took down the host team Walnut Ridge, 12-6 to advance to today's semifinal round.
A win today puts the Lady Patriots into Tuesday's 5 p.m. championship game against the Gillett-Bay winner and gives the team a slot in the state bracket.
The winner and runner-up from each regional advance to state.
The Lady Patriots will face Hazen today at 6:45 p.m. It is the third meeting of the year between the two 2AA-South schools and will be the second time in less than a week that the two teams have met in a tournament semifinal game.
The teams met once in regular season and again last Tuesday in the semifinals of the district tournament played at Des Arc.
The Lady Patriots survived a wild seven-inning affair to edge the Lady Hornets 15-14 in which both teams combined to score 29 runs on 23 hits.
On Saturday, against Walnut Ridge, P-W scored seven runs in the fourth inning using six hits and three walks and an error to take a 8-1 lead.
Walnut Ridge rallied to get within 8-6 but could get no closer.
Senior pitcher Libby Martin picked up the win for Palestine-Wheatley. Martin gave up the six Walnut Ridge runs on seven hits, while walking four and striking out three.
Andrea Cooper had two hits and three RBIs for Palestine-Wheatley while Martin added two hits and drove in a pair.
Kathryn Estes was 4-for-5 with an RBI for Walnut Ridge and Ashley Hufstedler hit a three-run home run during a five-run, fifth inning as the Lady Bobcats tried to rally.
In other action Saturday, Lee Davis' bases-loaded double highlighted a six-run second inning that lifted Bay to an 8-7 victory over Carlisle on Saturday.
Gillett blanked Marmaduke 15-0 and Hazen slipped past top-seeded Rector 11-6.
Gillett plays Bay today at 5 p.m. in semifinal action.
*The Forrest City Lady Mustangs ended their fast-pitch softball season Friday, losing to Marion 15-1.
The Lady Mustangs finish the year at 8-22 overall and were 2-12 in the AAAAA-East Conference.
Kimberly Hoots scored Forrest City's lone run in the varsity game.
The Marion junior varsity took a 7-1 win over the JV Lady Mustangs.
Rachel Sims was the only Forrest City player to score a run.