Winston-Salem – The Robbinsville Black Knights indoor track and field team reported to the JDL Fast Track on Feb. 11 with purpose.
At the end of the 1A/2A state championship meet, the program had placed fourth in the field and captured three state championships during the event – even resetting a state record that had stood for eight years along the way.
The 4x800 team of Colton McCoy, Benjamin Frederick, Xamuel Wachacha and Nathan Frederick won the event in 8:12.74 – nabbing gold medals and shaving their names into the North Carolina record books in the process. Franklin Academy finished a distant second, at 8:24.20.
The previous state standard was 8:12.93, set by North Lincoln in 2018.
Robbinsville ended the day with a 4x400 victory, with McCoy, Benjamin Frederick, Austin Bohn and Nathan Frederick completed the quest in 3:31.57, besting second-place Mountain Island Charter (3:32.54).
Senior Isiac Collins also flexed his muscles one more time in the shot put, with a heave of 53 feet, 11 1/2 inches proving enough to stand atop the podium. Starmount's Sam Shore was second, at 48 feet, 3 1/2 inches.
Elsewhere on the docket, Nathan Frederick placed third in the 1,000-meter run (2:40.49); McCoy was fourth in the 500-meter dash (1:07.88); and Wachacha took eighth in the 1,600-meter run (4:44.96).
The Black Knights tallied 42 team points, placing fourth in the chase. Corvian Community School won both the girls (114 points) and boys (95) team championships.
The only Lady Knight to qualify was Ashley Howell, who placed seventh in the shot put (27 feet, 11 inches).