Track and field | Priscilla Miller's big day for Southeast leads 20 area qualifications at Class 2A-11 meet
SARASOTA -- Trangila Martin saw glimpses of Priscilla Miller's capabilities during the athlete's freshman season at Southeast High School. Miller reached the region meet in a pair of events and established she had a future as a staple for the Seminoles.
This past summer marked her first full offseason with the Noles -- she also played basketball as a freshman -- and Thursday at Booker High School she showed the dividends of that undivided focus: a pair of wins and two second-place finishes.
"I'm very impressed with her," said Martin, the Southeast girls head coach. "I was just waiting for this year to come around. I told her, 'You've got to work hard.'"
Miller began the day winning the long jump and added a gold as part of the Seminoles' 400-meter relay. Miller finished second in the 100 and 200 dashes. Led by the sophomore, the Noles finished fourth in the girls team standings with 77 points at the Class 2A-District 11 meet in Sarasota, just ahead of fifth-place Bayshore's 51.
Englewood Lemon Bay won the girls team title with 175 points. St. Petersburg Lakewood, which finished
second on the girls side, won the boys title with 227 1/2 points. Southeast finished sixth with 39 and the Bruins came in seventh with 34.
The Seminoles will have competitors in 10 events at the Class 2A-Region 3 meet April 29 in Tampa, led by Miller in four. Johnelle Clark will also be there after winning district titles in the discus and shot put. Clark, who competed in the state meet last year, showed she'll once again be a threat.
"We talked and stuff this week and I told her, 'You've got to start working extra hard,'" Martin said, "'because there's a lot of good competition out here.'"
Dominic McRae won Southeast's only other district championship with a win in the 800. Other qualifiers were Dequan Williams with his third-place finish in the shot put, McRae with a fourth-place finish in the 3200 run and the Seminoles' girls 3200 relay team with a third-place finish.
In most events, the top four advanced to the state meet although Bayshore did get one through with a fifth-place finish to match the Noles with 10 qualifiers.
Alexus Norman, who finished fifth in the state in the high jump last season, began her junior postseason with Bayshore's first district title. She has a chance to be the No. 1 seed in the event at the region meet a year after her sister won a state title in the same event.
"She only jumped 5 foot today because coach moved her up to 5-3 instead of 5-2. She didn't clear 5-3," Bruins head coach Kim Cook said. "She jumped 5-4 last week at the county championship."
Bayshoreadded another region qualifier when Jasmine Tunstall finished second in the triple jump, then Bayshore got its other eight qualifiers across seven events on the track, including Charneycar Casimir, who won the 400 dash. The Bruins' girls 400 relay finished fourth, their girls 1600 relay finished second and their boys 1600 relay finished third. Paula Jean secured her place with a fifth-place finish in the 100 hurdles, and Arion Youmans and Caleb Freeman finished second and fourth, respectively, to qualify in the 400.
David Wilson, Herald sports writer, can be contacted at 941-745-7057 or on Twitter @DBWilson2.
This story was originally published April 14, 2016 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Track and field | Priscilla Miller's big day for Southeast leads 20 area qualifications at Class 2A-11 meet ."