Three members of the Madison County High School boys’ track team will put the finishing touches on what’s been a banner year for the Red Raider program — perhaps adding another chapter.
Madison County, which won three invitational meets this year and finished second in Region 8-AAAA, is sending three of its members — Jamal Cooper, Jeffery Hicks and Kendrick Butler — to the Georgia Olympics this week in Jefferson.
The state meet runs from today (Thursday) through Saturday.
Coach Jamie Sims is curious to see how these three representatives will stack up against the state’s best.
“Just how it pans out, we won’t know until Thursday, Friday and Saturday,” Sims said. “We got a chance to do well, so I am interested to see what happens. They have been practicing hard so we will see. They’ve got as a good a chance as anyone.”
Cooper, Madison County’s senior speedster, runs in the 100-meter preliminaries Friday at 1:45 p.m. and the 200 meter preliminaries Friday at 4:30 p.m. He’ll also compete in the long jump today (Thursday) at 2 p.m.
Hicks, the region pole vault champion, will compete in that event at noon today (Thursday).
Butler, the region 300-meter hurdles champion, will take part in the 300-meter hurdles preliminaries Friday at 5:20 p.m. and the triple jump today (Thursday) at 4 p.m.
Based on results submitted across the state, Madison County appears to have a chance to score high in at least two events.
Cooper’s 100-meter time of 10.62 is the second-fastest in the field of Class AAAA runners who qualified for state by one one-hundredth of a second. Hick’s vault of 12 feet is tied for second-best in Class AAAA among those who qualified for the state meet.
