Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 22, 1994 TAG: 9405220135
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C-12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BY RAY COX STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ABINGDON LENGTH: Medium
The boys' and girls' teams made a clean sweep of the Region IV meet at Abingdon High School, the boys for the sixth year in succession and the girls for the first time since 1987.
The boys dominated, despite not keeping precisely to coach Randy Bailey's schedule (he maps on paper how he expects events to transpire before they are contested), scoring 100 points to second-place Lee's 68 and Virginia High's 59.
The girls got significant contributions from weight-thrower Maureen Jackson and distance-runner Bethany Eigel, along with Pam Jones and the 1,600-meter relay team, to edge Abingdon 89-76. Third-place Radford had 73.
Bailey was found nervously eyeballing his paperwork early in the meet. All was not going as planned and he pronounced himself to be "sweating bullets."
The boys had no first-place finisher other than the 400 relay team of Andra Beasley, Stephen Trail, Steve Surratt and Larry Carter. But the Blue Demons did place at least one athlete in every event.
Beasley, the most gifted of the team's athletes, had what may have been for him a disappointing day. Nonetheless, it was a productive one. He placed in six events - long jump, triple jump, shot put, 100, 200 and 400 relay - and scored 28 1/2 points.
Essentially, though, Christiansburg was a team of unsung heroes. Eric Childress was unseeded in the 300 hurdles but placed anyway. John Cochran was tied for fourth seed coming into the high jump and finished second. Jack Moore was unseeded in the discus but finished fifth.
For Christiansburg's girls, it was another matter. For one thing, the heroines - Jackson and Eigel - weren't hard to find. Jackson was first in the shot put with a heave of 36 feet, 4 inches and second in the discus. Eigel finished first in the 1,600 - her favorite event - and second in the 3,200.
Jones came through with a third in the triple jump and fifth in the long jump.
"We needed those points from the field events because we had nothing in the 110 hurdles, the 100 and the 200," said Norma Cox, Christiansburg's coach.
Eigel came within one second of tying her personal best in the 1,600 with a time of 5 minutes, 17 seconds.
In the end, it came down to Eigel, Coleen Crawford of Abingdon and Sarah Hendricks of Blacksburg.
Christiansburg had to have all the heroics it could muster to hold off Abingdon and Carrie Bundy, who was sensational, placing in seven events and scoring 43 points.
by CNB