GREENSBORO — East Wake and Knightdale track teams ended a season of hard work in the state 4-A championships at North Carolina A&T University on Saturday, May 23.

Women’s teams at both Knightdale and East Wake came up shy of placing in the top 44 in team rankings.

Knightdale’s men’s team finished 30th and East Wake’s men finished 41 out of the 52 teams.

Warrior throwing coach Jamie Lemmond said discus thrower Marquis Boone put up a decent showing despite not placing in the state finals.

“We knew he had to get a bigger throw then he had come close to, so he was a little out of control,” Lemmond said.

He said the East Wake team’s goal was simple — to set personal records and to make the finals, something Chris Smith “obviously blew away,” according to Lemmond. He didn’t mean blew away in a bad way.

Smith was seeded 13th of the 16 shot put chuckers. In preliminaries he jumped into second place in the first flight on his second throw which was 49’1”. That was a personal best over his old record of 47’9”, but Smith didn’t stop there.

“He was ranked sixth going into the finals and on his last throw he jumped into fourth on another personal record, this time 49’9”, but was then beat out by another thrower on their last throw, so Chris ended up fifth,” Lemmond said.

Knightdale’s men’s 4x200-meter relay team was the only group from either of the two schools, men or women, to place in the top three.

“We didn’t do as good in the regional — it was pretty rainy — but we placed well in states and won a medal for the third place spot,” Knightdale coach David Castell said.

Castell said key runner Lavert Octetree was injured in the preliminaries of 4x100 at regionals and was replaced by freshman Joe Horton.

“He performed well. He surprised me in the relay. He’s normally good in the open 200, and if I put him on 4x200 I normally put him in as the second leg, but he ran first leg in states, pulled away and we never looked back from there,” Castell said.

The Knightdale coach seemed pleased with his team’s overall performance. He noted the 4x800 group made it to the state championships after breaking a school record at regionals. The team of Darius Brantley, Dontrez Carmon, Travis Newton and Steven Merritt dropped 21 seconds off its time in the states after already shaving 10 seconds from its best time in its regional showing.

“That doesn’t happen in one season,” Castell said. “Those guys worked real hard and practiced extremely hard during their days off.”

Individual and relay results from the state finals in Greensboro are as follows:

Women 400 Meter Dash:
12) Kiara Bridges (KHS) 59.64 (seed), 58.93 (prelims)

Women 4x400 Meter Relay:
14) Knightdale — 4:08.69 (seed) 4:05.30 (finals) 1 - Tianna McHenry 2 - Asia Pittman 3 - Deanna Hardesty 4 - Kiara Bridges

Men 800 Meter Run:
9) Steven Merritt, (KHS) 1:59.03 (seed), 1:58.29 (finals)

Men 4x100 Meter Relay:
8) Knightdale — 43.26 (seed), 42.84 (finals) 1 - Greg Jackson 2 - Joseph Horton 3 - Dontrez Carmon 4 - Mar-Keo Jones

Men 4x200 Meter Relay:
3) Knightdale — 1:29.84 (seed), 1:28.50 (final) 1 - Joseph Horton 2 - Mar-Keo Jones 3 - Dontrez Carmon 4 - Christopher Barnes

Men 4x800 Meter Relay:
9) Knightdale — 8:12.30 (seed), 8:07.53 (finals) 1 - Darius Brantley 2 - Dontrez Carmon 3 - Travis Newton 4 - Steven Merritt

Men Shot Put:
5) Chris Smith (EW) 45-09.50 (seed), 49-09 (finals)

Men Discus Throw:
— Boone, Marquis (EW) (dnp)

Mens team results are as follows:
1) New Bern — 46
2) Mount Tabor — 40
3) Green Hope — 32
3) Southeast Raleigh — 32
5) West Charlotte — 29
6) Mallard Creek — 27
7) Cary — 26
7) Z. B. Vance — 26
9) Chapel Hill — 25
10) E. E. Smith — 24
11) R. J. Reynolds — 20
11) East Burke — 20
13) High Point Central — 18
14) Southern Durham — 17
15) North Davidson — 16
15) East Forsyth — 16
15) J. H. Rose — 16
18) Wakefield — 14
18) Clayton — 14
20) Butler — 12.50
21) Broughton — 12
22) Pine Forest — 11
22) Apex — 11
22) Northwest Guilford —11
25) A. C. Reynolds — 9
25) Northern Durham — 9
27) South View — 8
27) Crest — 8
27) Jack Britt — 8
30) East Chapel Hill — 7
30) Knightdale — 7
30) Seventy-First — 7
33) Richmond — 6
33) West Johnston — 6
35) J. M. Robinson — 5
35) New Hanover — 5
35) Hopewell — 5
35) Jordan — 5
35) Ashbrook — 5
40) Watauga — 4
41) Ardrey Kell — 3
41) Hoggard — 3
41) Smithfield-Selma — 3
41) East Wake — 3
45) Independence — 2
45) Westover — 2
47) Providence — 1
47) Myers Park — 1
47) Leesville Road — 1
47) Pinecrest — 1
47) East Mecklenburg — 1
52) Davie County — 0.50