An incredible team battle took place on Friday at the NCHSAA 4A State Championships between Rolesville and Cuthbertson girls that came down to the 4x400m and a single point victory for the Rolesville Rams winning with 63 points to the Cuthbertson Cavaliers 62 points.
Cuthbertson girls were defending champions and were set to score a ton of points individually with Charlotte Bell, Stella Kermes and Justine Preisano in the 1600m and 800m. Rolesville would have an ace of their own in the Sprints and Hurdles in Joslyn Hamilton.
Hamilton would kick off the day advancing through the 100mH and 100m prelims with the top seed time. In the 100m she'd have teammate Ra'Keya Cofield Wade place 6th to also advance to the finals as well as Jordan Rochester who would advance to the 100mH finals with the fifth fastest prelim mark.
Hamilton would do as she has done all year and would complete the straightaway double running a season best in both events with a 13.57 in the 100mH and a 11.67 in the 100m Dash Finals. This would net the Rams 20 points.
Rochester would improve on her prelim finish moving up to 3rd for 6 big team points with a PR of 14.00! Cofield Wade would improve as well to 5th place for 4 points running 12.08.
The relays would be important events for the Rams contesting the 4x100m and 4x200m. Both of those teams would place 3rd overall running 1:39.90 for the 4x200m and 47.10 for the 4x100m to score 12 additional points.
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In between those two relays, Cuthbertson's distance girls would go 1-2-3 in the 1600m running seasons best of 4:38, 4:44 and 4:44 for Bell, Preisano and Kermes respectively. They'd hold their top three girls out of the 4x800m run earlier in the day looking to maximize points on the individual side and placed 6th with their 4th-7th girls running 9:35.24.
The trio would double back in the 800m to finish 1-2-4 totaling 47 points from the three girls just between two events. Bell would win just ahead of Kermes in 2:08 to 2:09 with Preisano taking 4th.
Josie Schihl would double back from the 4x800m to run a season best in the 3200m of 10:41.88 to place 5th overall. The Cavaliers would also place 8th in the 4x200m, have Morgan Edwards place 8th in the Pole Vault to round out the team scores ahead of the 4x400m.
For the Rams, Rochester would score a big 5 points with a PR in the Long Jump of 18-0.25. Cofield Wade would score big points in the 200m running a PR of 24.52 as well to wrap up their team scoring on the day as they did not have a 4x400m qualify.
Joslyn Hamilton would win a battle with defending 300mH Champion Aria Wegh of Marvin Ridge running 41.10 good for NC#3 All-Time. This would give her 30 points individually of the 63 that Rolesville scored on the day.
After 17 or 18 events, Rolesville would lead Cuthbertson by 7 points with a score of 63 to 56. This would mean Cuthbertson would need to place first or second in the 4x400m to defend their team title.
With 16 teams qualifying there are two heats of the 4x400m and Hillside girls would throw down a fast mark of 3:57.12. The fast section would go off and Parkland, Cuthbertson and Marvin Ridge would be amongst teams mixing it up at the bell. Parkland held a lead, but Aria Wegh of Marvin Ridge would get the stick in second and make up the gap quickly and would not look back giving the Mavericks the win in 3:54.09. Parkland had some distance on Cuthbertson who had put Charlotte Bell on the anchor leg and was flying. Going down the homestretch she'd pass Parkland to finish 2nd in their heat. But they'd fall just short of the mark Hillside ran in the previous section running 3:57.24.
This will be Rolesville's first NCHSAA Track & Field State Championship in school history. They'd have a near perfect day as far as scoring could go and didn't leave too many points out on the table. It was certainly in dramatic fashion needing to watch from the sidelines in the 4x400m having to look at the clock to see they were able to hold onto the team title by just .12 seconds.
Cuthbertson have built an incredible dynasty in track & cross country winning the last two NCHSAA 4A Team Titles as well as the 3A title the year before in 2021. While they'll lose their distance stars it's going to be to no one surprise to see the Cavaliers to continue to battle to team titles going forward.