The Patriots held a lead but had not clinched the 3A girls’ title. They needed a solid finish in the 4×400-meter relay.
Northern raced with the front of the pack and finished fourth in the last event, picking up enough points to hold off Blake for its third consecutive indoor state title.
“These girls are putting in all the hard work, and it’s showing every year during states,” senior Gabby Cope said.
The Patriots (45 points) edged Blake (39) for the 3A girls’ hardware. River Hill (36) was third, edging Howard (35.5).
In the 3A boys’ meet, Digital Harbor (67) cruised to the title, with Northern (42) finishing second, edging Towson (40).
Cope, a shot putter, notched Northern’s only first-place finish. She had already won before stepping up for her final throw of the event but still launched her last attempt — for a personal best of 43 feet 9.25 inches.
“I knew I won, so I just went out there and threw it,” Cope said. “It flew, I guess.”
The Patriots’ relay and middle-distance performances were enough for their third straight girls’ title and similarly helped the boys to their runner-up finish. The Patriots finished second in the 4×200-meter and 4×400-meter relays, the last race of the night, to jump into second place overall.
La Plata’s short-distance success nearly helped it overcome Hereford in the 2A boys’ meet. The Warriors earned 30 of their 46 team points in the 55-meter sprint, 55-meter hurdles and 4×200-meter relay. Darrius Mason and Mekhi Prather medaled in the 55-meter sprint, but La Plata fell 7.5 points short of 2A champ Hereford, finishing as the runner-up with 46.5 points. It was the Warriors’ best finish since 2007.
Blake’s Brooke Cochran kept the Bengals close to Northern, winning the 300 in 39.80 seconds, picking up points in the 55-meter dash and anchoring the 4×400-meter relay team, which finished first in the last event of the night to propel the Bengals to second place.
Southern’s girls finished second in the 2A meet on the strength of strong showings in the middle-distance events. The Bulldogs scored eight points or more in the 300-meter, 500-meter and 800-meter races. They finished second in the 4×400-meter relay and won the 4×800-meter relay but didn’t pick up a point outside of those events.
Eric Penkala almost single-handedly led Southern to a fourth-place finish on the boys’ side with three individual state titles.
Penkala scored 30 of Southern’s 31 team points by dominating the 3,200 (9:31.39), winning the 800 in 1:58.44 and breaking the 2A record in the 1,600 in 4:17.46.
He wasn’t the only one to break records. River Hill’s 4×800-meter relay team (9:35.39) took down a 21-year-old 3A girls’ record by more than four seconds. And Centennial’s Marlin Newsome bested a 2A boys’ record set last year by one-hundredth of a second with a sizzling time of 6.38 in the 55-meter dash.