Mason County’s Rachel Payne (blue) won three events at the Woodall Invitational at Bryan Station on Saturday, including setting her own school record in the 300-meter hurdles with a time of 46.82. Payne also won the 100-meter hurdles and high jump. (Jared MacDonald photo)
HIGH SCHOOL TRACK AND FIELD
Rachel Payne wins 100 hurdles, 300 hurdles and long jump
In what was their final meet against some of the larger schools in and around Lexington, Mason County’s girls showed once again they’ll be a force to be reckoned with as region and state meets approach over the next couple of weeks.
The Lady Royals finished second in the meet out of 17 teams participating at the Woodall Invitational at Bryan Station on Saturday. They scored 76 points, West Jessamine with 88 points the only team to finish above them.
Rachel Payne was the star of the meet for the Lady Royals winning three events. She broke her own school record in the 300-meter hurdles with a time of 46.82, besting her previous school record time by over a second. Payne also won the 100 hurdles (17.07) and the high jump (4-10) to get the team 30 points on the day. She was also the anchor of the 4×400 relay team that finished third (4:27.15).
Others adding points for the Lady Royals on the day were Karis Applegate in the 100-meter dash with a second place finish (12.89) and third in the 200 (27.02), Elizabeth Lavinder third in the 3,200 (12:05.66) and sixth in the 1,600 (5:36.82), Morgan Carpenter sixth in the pole vault (8-00), Lexi Young third in the long jump (16-01), Kenzi Gulley fourth in the long jump (16-0), while the 4×100 relay team finished fourth (52.71), 4×200 relay team fifth (1:53.52) and 4×800 relay team fifth (10:34.91).
The team will now get a week off from meets with graduation next weekend before they host the Area 7 championship on May 29 and host the Region 6, Class AA meet on June 5.
The Royals finished 10th in the meet with 26 points. Frederick Douglas won the boys’ meet with 101 points.
Scoring for the Royals in the meet was Alix Flinders in third in the 400 meters (52.58), Carson Adams third in the 800 (2:06.10), A.J. Barrett second in the pole vault (10-06), the 4×400 relay team fourth (3:40.26) and the 4×100 relay team in fifth (46.70).
