It’s been three weeks since the Washington track and field team competed in the Coastal Conference meet but the team showed no signs of rust at the NCHSAA 3-A East Regional meet on Saturday at Nash Central High School.

The long layoff had little affect on the Pam Pack as Janell Griffin, Haley Hiatt, Datisha Redmond, Yasmine Horton, Kevin Chapman and Raheem Patterson will all be participating in the NCHSAA 3-A State meet this Friday at N.C. A&T.

Griffin took second place in the 100-meter hurdles with a time of 15.00 and helped the girls 4×100-meter relay team place fourth as Griffin along with Hiatt, Redmond and Horton ran a time of 51.56 to advance.

On the boys side, Chapman tossed the shot put 47-feet, 4.5-inches to earn the bronze, while Raheem Patterson placed third in the 200-meter dash by running a 22.45. To advance to the state meet an athlete or team must place in the top four.

Washington track and field coach Jon Blank, who is in his eighth year with the Pack, said he could not remember having such a long break in between the conference and regional meets but did say the extra time was helpful.

“It was one of those weird years where half the teams in the conference had spring break one week and the other half had it the other week and that forced use to have such an early conference meet,” Blank said.

“I think the kids that made the regionals did a good job of getting their focus back this week at practice. We had some injury issues that needed some time and that really helped us. It gave us some time to refresh a little bit. I think it helped some kids, and maybe it might have hurt some others, but I felt like we did about as good as we were going to do today.”

In the girls’ meet, South Central took first place with a score of 86.5 and was followed by Fike (71) and Rocky Mount (57). The Pam Pack girls took 14th place out of the 20-team meet with 12 points.

Rocky Mount was able to snag gold in the boys meet by tallying 87 points, while Nash Central placed second (68) and White Oak (60) captured third. Washington accumulated 16 points to place 13th out of the 21 teams that competed despite not having a healthy William Ellegor.

“William Ellegor was kind of hampered by a hamstring injury,” Blank said. “He injured it early in the week, he was supposed to long jump and triple jump and race in the 4×100 and 4×200 and he couldn’t go for us today. He tried to jump but he couldn’t go. That hurt us a lot, it killed our boys relays.”

Blank said he was thrilled with the way his girls’ team performed.

“I was really pleased with the effort they gave today,” Blank said. “Janell ran a great race and took second in the 100 hurdles … Haley took eighth in the discus and the girls 4×400 (Hiatt, Horton, Redmond and Tekearah Spruill) took sixth … I was pretty pleased with the effort they gave today, they were all on top of their game.

“Janell has a little bit of a (heel) injury and she went out (Saturday) and looked very strong. She went out and beat a girl who beat her in the conference championship meet. She was super focused and had a great day … And the 4×100 team has just bee a great team for us this year. They work very hard and are goal-orientated. They have wanted to get to the state championship meet and they did what it took to get there.”

While the girls team surpassed expectations, Blank could not say the same about the boys team.

“The boys didn’t really live up to expectations,” Blank said. “Chapman took third but I felt like he could have done better. Raheem took third in the 200 and again, is somebody that I thought could have done better.”

Blank did say he was pleased with effort of the 4×800 relay team which consists of Raphael Gibbs, Jack Rodman, Mortin Morales and Thomas Sutton.

“My boys 4X800 team finished fifth and just barely missed out on making it to state,” Blank said. “They ran the best race they ran all year and I’m definitely proud of those guys.”

Blank also praised the performance of Sutton, who placed sixth in the 800-meter run.

“He gave us a great finish in that 4×800 and he battled all the way to the end,” Blank said. “In the 800, he went into that ranked 15th out of 16 kids and he ended up taking sixth place. He had a great day. He’s a senior and this was his last meet for us and he went out the way you’re supposed to go out.”

Blank is hoping for the rest of his team to go out on a high note this Friday when they compete in the state meet. Blank said that is possible if the team has the right state of mind.

“One of the big things we try to prepare for is the mental part of competing at that level,” Blank said. “Once you get to the state meet everybody is good, there aren’t any flukes at the state meet. You’re at the top of you’re game and so is everyone else. So you have to show up mentally. You can’t be intimidated by what these other kids do, just go do what you do.”