The Heritage-Lynchburg girls and Abingdon boys marched away with Class 3 state championships at last week’s VHSL Indoor Track Championships, held at Tolsma Track Center on the campus of Liberty University.

Both teams won easily and utilized their strengths to push their team scores much higher than the norm for a state meet.

Heritage-Lynchburg scored 86, 25 more than runner-up Maggie Walker (61) and almost double the total of third place Tabb (45.33). While the Eagles showed balance, they also benefitted greatly from the performance of Alaysia Oakes, who won five individual titles – in the 55 (7.09), 300 (40.86), 500 (1:17.42), long and triple jumps - to score 50 points on her own.

With five wins, Oakes now has 18 individual state championships, believed to be the most among Virginia females and possibly overall. It is possible that Doug Dickinson from the 1960’s era Newport News High Championship boys’ teams won 20, during a time when both the low and high hurdles were run as separate events. The Typhoon won 14 boys’ state titles in the 1960’s, many with Dickinson as the catalyst.

With a repeat performance during outdoor season, Oakes, a Stanford commit, will own the outright record.

Senior Jessica Palisca of Cave Spring High won the 1000 (3:00.75) and 1600 (5:05.72).

For the Abingdon boys, their distance runners have always been the team’s strength, and they scored 62 points in three events – the 4x800 (8:10.33), 1000, 1600, and 3200. A 1-2-3 finish in the 1600, won by Dylan Phillips (4:21.96), followed by Isaac Thiessen (4:22.65) and Jack Bundy (4:25.55) boosted the Falcons to an early lead that they would not relinquish, totaling 97 points to easily outdistance Heritage-Lynchburg (63) and I.C. Norcom (53).

Xander Brown placed second in the 55 (6.40) and 300 (35.00), races won by Heritage’s Kenneth Crawford in 6.36 and 34.98.

Norcom’s Montrell Covil won the long (22-6.5) and triple (46-5) to lead the Greyhounds, while Goochland’s Tyler Bland cleared 13-3 to win the pole vault.