By Jim Bickford

Contributing Writer

Trackmic@juno.com

Even though they didn’t win this year’s girls’ District 9-5A track and field championship, Chalmette High’s Lady Owls proved they will be a team to be reckon with at next year’s district championship meet.

Coach Tanesha Sanchez’s girls scored 119.50 points, second to district champion L.W. Higgins with 130 points. They were followed by John Ehret 101.50, Bonnabel 92, West Jefferson 89 and Grace King 10.

Chalmette returns next year with female athletes who scored all but 10 of the team’s 119.50 points. The future looks bright for the Lady Owls.

Juniors Vershione Toney and Melanie Benit were the Lady Owls only district champions as Toney captured the 400-meter dash with a personal record clocking of 1:01.13 and Benit won the pole vault (eight feet), edging her teammate Alexis Salazar, who jumped the same height, but had more misses.

Toney scored more points than any other Lady Owl with her win in the 440; a third place in the 100-meter dash (PR of 13.24); running a leg on the fourth-place 4×200-meter relay. She also anchored the third-place 4×400-meter relay quartet of Thompson, Alex Schmaltz and Melanie Fink (4:32.59) heading to the regional meet at Thibodaux.

Jordan Hartney notched a second place in the discus (85-2), a third in the javelin (101-4) and a fifth in the high jump (4-2) to score 15.50 points.

Keondra Lafrance set a personal record of 33-7.25, as the runner-up in the triple jump. She added a third place in the long jump (15-7.50) and ran a leg on the fourth-place 4×200-meter relay foursome of Shanice Willilams, Cierra Thompson and Toney (1:51.12).

Besides her pole vault victory, Benit finished third in both the 1,600-meter run (6:40.31) and in the 3,200-meter run (16:01.15) and fifth in the 300-meter hurdles (56.67).

Senior Carley McInnis notched a third in the 100-meter hurdles (18.68) and a sixth in the 300-meter hurdles (58.54), while Melanie Fink earned a third in the 800-meter run (2:49.68).