Cardinal Ritter Girls Track continues their reign with four consecutive titles this spring, dominating the competition and making history once again.
Left to right: Cardinal Ritter sprinter Aniyah Brown the state’s 100 meters for the third time in four seasons. (Center) The Cardinal Ritter coaches pose with the honors. Head coach Tiffany Spain is in the center, wearing sunglasses and black sneakers and far right, state triple jump champion Hannah Wallace poses with assistant coach Chico Jones. Photos courtesy of Cardinal Ritter
Call them the gold-medal winners of the spring, just as the Paris Olympics will crown the ultimate gold-medal winners later this summer. The Lady Lions of Cardinal Ritter captured their unprecedented four straight Missouri track and field championship last month in Class 5.
Given that track and field doesn’t enjoy more popularity than it does in an Olympic season, let’s keep the interest going by recapping Cardinal Ritter’s latest ‘gold medal’ spring season when they ‘ran away’ with another state team title. Sparked by individual event champions in dual winner Kyndall Spain (100 and 300-meter hurdles), individual event winners Aniyah Brown (100 meter dash) and Hannah Wallace (triple jump) and relay team triumphs (in the 4×100 and 4×200 meters), they were able to rack up 103 points to 75 points on formidable runner-up Blue Springs from Kansas City.
In a recent interview with KSDK Channel 5 sports, Lions head coach Tiffany Spain said the objective is always to get better and for the student-athletes to develop beyond sports, be it her girls program or the partner boys program, which took third in Class 4 in team standings.
“Our new goal is to win it a fifth time,” said Spain “and continue to develop them as athletes and as young women and men. We want to “see how we can outdo ourselves from the previous year.”
Wallace, whose bound to St. Louis University on a basketball scholarship, contributed 18 points to the tally with her victory in the triple jump of 39-feet. 10.74 inches and a second place in the high jump. Her triple jump victory was just a mere quarter inch better than Columbia Hickman’s Athena Peterson’s second place jump.
“It was definitely nerve-racking ,” relayed Wallace in an interview with Missouri mile-split, a track and field website “(But) I was confident in my jump, confident in my work ethic”
As far as being a part of such a dominant program, Wallace said confidence and unity play a major role.
“I have confidence in myself because of the people around me,” she said. “It’s definitely a family, definitely a great feeling It’s definitely an experience to be able to be part of the this success and what we’ve been able to endure.”
Spain is the daughter of coach Tiffany Spain, who is also a former state hurdles champion at what was then known as Gateway Tech (now Gateway Stem). The daughter captured the 100 meters in 13.64 seconds and the 300 meters in 42.53 seconds. Meanwhile teammate Aniyah Brown, a senior headed to Ohio State, won the 100 meters state championship for the third time in her four-year career, as she edged out Pattonville’s Alaji Bradley in 11.60 seconds to Bradley’s 11.66 seconds.
However Bradley came back to nipped Brown in the 200 meters, by registering a time of 23.51 followed by Brown’s 23.61 time For good measure, Bradley also captured the 400 meters in 54.51 seconds, to close out her high school career in a flurry as she prepares to go the University of Kentucky.
“The 200 is about heart and fight,” said Bradley to Missouri mile-split, “It’s about who had the most heart, who had the most fight. It’s not who has the fastest foot speed. Those are the best of the best I’m going out with a bang.”
That was just like Cardinal Ritter’s team going out with a bang overall, in taking its fourth consecutive state championship amid formidable competition. In addition to the aforementioned individual winners, the quartet of Brooklyn Brady, Kayla Watkins, Takia Tiller and Mekenzie Rogers won both the 4×100 and 4×200 meter relay races. How deep must Lady Lions be in talent, that they could win both prime relay sprint events, without the three-time state 100 meter champ Aniyah Brown running with the baton? That’s a gold medal team, indeed.
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