Lady Indians capture first ever SIRR conference title

The Lady Indians' track team made history Friday evening, capturing the first SIRR Mississippi Division conference championship in the school's history, taking first in 10 out of 18 events to edge out second-place Nashville, 170-143.
"Trust me, we know about it (this being our first conference title)," Du Quoin head coach Shane Boyett said. "I've been coaching for 20 years. I've had a lot of years with fifth and sixth-places in conference and I never thought we'd win first."
Leading the charge was senior Tarynn Mays who pulled off a clean sweep of all four of her events.
Mays led things off in the long jump with a jump of 16-01.50 for her first of four conference titles on the day. She followed up in the triple jump, shattering the conference meet record with a jump of 38-01.50.
She closed out her historic day in the 100-meter and 200-meter dashes, winning the 100 with a time of 13.05 second and the 200 with a time of 27.93 seconds, edging out teammate Madison Davis who took second in both events with times of 13.32 in the 100 and 28.26 in the 200.
"I am very proud of my team, we just made history," Mays said. "I am just trying to go out with a bang as much as I can, enjoy everything. Obviously this is a plus, but it's just so surreal."
But, Mays is far from done as she approaches the her sectionals and state for the final time.
"Yea, honestly it really did (boost confidence moving forward), but I can't settle, you have to keep that drive, have that mentality to push yourself harder," Mays said. "I have to keep going. I'm hungry for more and i have to be greedy because i can't settle."
Freshman Gabby Alongi was equally impressive for Du Quoin, sweeping the distance events.
She took first in the 3200-meter run with a time of 12.43.76, the 1600-meter run with a time of 5:53.67 and the 800-meter run with a time of 2.59 seconds.
She also anchored the second-place finishing 4x400-meter relay team with a time of 4:30.08 as Alongi edged out Pinckneyville, who finished in 4:30.37, on the final straightaway.
Bailey Harsy and Davis were the other individual conference champions for Du Quoin, with Harsy finishing first in the 100-meter hurdles with a time of 17.53 seconds and Davis winning the 400-meter dash with a time of 1:02.59.
The 4x100-meter relay team (Hannah Baxter, Skye Westerhouse, Harsy and Davis) took the other conference championship with a time of 53.03 seconds to continue the team's undefeated season.
Du Quoin picked up four other top-three finishes (Elizabeth Bird second in high jump, Harsy third in the 300-meter hurdles, 4x200-meter relay team second and 4x800-meter relay team second) and nine more top-six finishes to cap off the conference title.
"We've had a great year," Boyett said. "We have some great athletes and some great team members. Every point counted. We were counting on those fifth-places and sixth-places as much as those first-places. It was a great team effort."
Du Quoin will look to keep the momentum of its historic season going when it resumes action Wednesday at the Fairfield sectional.
"The goal next week is to get as many as we can up there and hopefully get in position that we can score some points up at state," Boyett said. "I think they can do that. I know our expectations (and) so far they have met everything this year. So, hopefully we can keep the momentum going."
Other scorers in the meet for Du Quoin were Quinn Kirkpatrick (fifth in pole vault and fourth in the 800-meter run), Melena Adams (sixth in pole vault), Emily Born (sixth in discus), Maci Collins (sixth in shot put), Andrea Lopez (fifth in the 3200-meter run and sixth in the 1600-meter run) and Kate Smith (fifth in the 400-meter dash).