Orange Track and Field

Our Retro Orange Panther of the Week takes us back to February 7. Freshman Katie Belle Sikes had a memorable year at Orange in more ways than one. She won two regional championships in swimming. At the Greensboro Aquatic Center, Belle won the regional titles in the 50 yard freestyle and the 100 yard freestyle. A week later at the 3A State Championships in Raleigh, Belle finished 2nd in the 50 yard freestyle. She came in 3rd in the 100 yard freestyle. Belle also finished 5th in the regional championships in the 200 yard medley relay with Riley White, Brooke Walker and Melissa Campbell. After the winter ended, Belle continued to practice with her club team at the Orange County Sportsplex. Like many other swimmers across the country, Belle spent the past two weeks watching the Summer Olympics in Tokyo closely, and dreaming of reaching that level someday. For now, Belle is preparing for her sophomore year at Orange and preparing for next November when the next swim season begins. This year, Belle will compete in a more traditional setting instead of the pandemic conditions of 2021, where she largely raced against the clock.

Our Retro Orange Panther of the Week is swimmer Owen Rasinske. Last winter, Rasinske qualified for the 3A State Championships in four different events. He teamed with classmate Matthew Geib, junior Ian Moore and sophomore Evan Phillips to finish 10th in the state in the 400 yard freestyle relay in 3:27.40. Like nearly everything else, the state swimming championships were impacted by the pandemic this year. Instead of the intensity of competing against eight other swimmers in opposing lanes, Rasinske and his teammates competed against the clock in timed finals. He joined Moore, Phillips and Geib to finish 10th in the 200 yard medley relay at 1:42.56. That group finished 5th in the Central Regional Championships. Individually, Rasinske finished 10th in the state in the 50 yard freestyle at 22.31 seconds. He also finished 10th in the state in the 100 yard freestyle with a time of 49.03 seconds. In the Central Regional Championships, Rasinske finished 2nd in the 50 yard freestyle and 3rd in the 100 yard freestyle. Rasinske graduated from Orange in June and is set to take a gap year. For now, he continues to train with his club team at the Orange County Sportsplex.

Our final Orange Panther of the Week for the 2020-2021 academic year is senior track and field athlete Erin Mink. On June 26, Mink finished 7th at the 3A State Track and Field Championships at North Carolina A&T’s Truist Stadium in Greensboro. Mink cleared ten feet. The previous week, Mink came in second at the Mideast Regionals at Southern Lee High School in Sanford. Mink didn’t just excel in the pole vault. At the Big 8 Conference Championships, Mink finished second in the triple jump and fourth in the long jump. This season, Mink Mink finished first in the triple jump at Friday Night Lights at East Chapel Hill High School on June 4. Mink had eight first place finishes for Orange this season in three different events. Her final meet at Orange took place two weeks after she graduated. Later this month, Mink will move in to her new surroundings at UNC-Chapel Hill, where she plans to study biology.

GREENSBORO–As Spencer Hampton prepared to run the biggest race of his life, there was a rainbow overhead.

The threatening clouds that had permeated the afternoon at Truist Stadium inside North Carolina A&T State University in Greensboro had yielded to a rare but glorious sight. If someone believed in omens, they may have thought that Orange was about to have its first long-distance running state champion since 1998.

For eight minutes and 3,100 meters, Hampton reinforced that belief.

But it was the 3,200 meters that Hampton was running in. Walter Williams Ryan Motondo passed Hampton about 90 meters from the finish line to overtake the lead and beat Hampton to win the 3A State Championship on Saturday afternoon.

Motondo finished the race at 9:22.50. Hampton earned the second spot on the medal stand at Belk Track at 9:26.07. It is the best finish by any Orange runner, regardless of gender, since Bradsher Wilkins won the 4A Men’s 3,200 meter championship in 1998.

“I kind of knew what was going to happen,” Hampton said. “He (Motondo) has a really phenomenal kick. He’s a really phenomenal runner. I knew from the start I was going to have to take it out from the front if I was going to have to have a chance because a lot of these kids have a lot more of a kick that I do. We came down the stretch and I hoped that he didn’t have in him, but he did. I’m still super happy with how I did.”

At the outset, Hampton established the lead and turned back challenger after challenger through eight laps. Jack Dingman, a senior from Northern Guilford who won the 1,600 meter state championship earlier in the day, stayed just behind Hampton on the opening laps, but faded to the back. Chapel Hill’s Emil Arangala was a few strides back on the third and four laps, but couldn’t continue that pace. Weddington sophomore Caden Townshend also posed a threat before he was passed by Motondo.

Hampton and Motondo are no strangers to one another, and they’ll only get better acquainted as time goes on. Motondo was the 3A State Champion in men’s cross country in January, a race where Spencer finished 24th. In August, Orange and Williams will become league rivals in the brand new Central Conference.

Hampton won the 3A Mideast Regional Championship in the 1,600 meters at Southern Lee High School in Sanford on January 19. He opted not to run in the 1,600 meters state championship race on Saturday in order to focus on the 3,200 meters.

Orange was well-represented throughout the 3A State Track and Field Championships on a warm, but not oppressively hot, Saturday afternoon in Greensboro. Orange’s 4×400 relay team of Devin Goss, Keanu Mims, Jeffrey Faulkner and Elijah Danley finished 7th in the state. The Panthers won the opening heat on the strength of a great anchor run by Faulker, who surged past competitors from A.C. Reynolds and Union Pines at the finish line at 3:31.80. Cuthbertson won the state championship at 3:19.40.

The men’s 4×200 relay team of Faulkner, Mims, Danley and Gasiah Drewery came in 10th in the state at 1:32.82. Cuthbertson won another state championship at 1:26.41.

Orange’s 4×800 relay squad, which included Alden Cathey and Nicholas Pell, finished 11th at 8:39.04. Weddington won the 3A State Championship at 7:58.66

Orange’s Erin Mink was the only female state qualifier. A senior who also competed in the long jump and the triple jump this season, Mink finished eighth in the pole vault when she cleared ten feet. Emma Stone of Marvin Ridge won the 3A State Championship at 12-feet, six-inches.

This was the last official team event for Orange and Cedar Ridge as members of the Big 8 Conference. On August 16, when men’s soccer and women’s tennis officially start, the Panthers and the Red Wolves will become members of the new Central Conference.

If the 3A State Championship meet had been 3,100 meters, Orange’s Spencer Hampton would have won it all. Instead, Walter Williams Ryan Motondo passed Hampton on the backstretch with 80 meters remaining to win the 3,200 meters at the 3A State Track and Field Championships at Truist Stadium inside North Carolina A&T State University on Saturday. Hampton, who won the 1,600 meter regional championship last week at Southern Lee High School, led the entire race, fending off challenges from Jack Dingman of Northern Guilford, Emil Arangala of Chapel Hill and Caden Townsend of Weddington. Hampton concluded a successful season where he claimed ten 1st places finishes, along with being the only individual runner from Hillsborough to qualify for a state championship. Motondo and Hampton will continue their rivalry again in August. Last fall, the two competed in cross country. Next year, Orange will join Williams in the new Central Conference, where Hampton and Motondo will dual on the track in the spring and the cross country courses in the fall.

This week’s Orange Panther of the Week is junior runner Spencer Hampton. On Saturday, Hampton captured the 3A Mideast Regional Championship in the 1,600 meters at Southern Lee High School. Hampton finished at 4:22.10, a full six seconds ahead of the second-place finisher. He became Orange’s first regional champion in outdoor track and field, regardless of gender, since 2018. Hampton also qualified for the 3A State Championships in the 3,200 meters after a 4th place finish at Southern Lee. This season, Hampton has ten 1st place finishes in the 1,600 and 3,200 meters as a individual runner. He also has finished first as a member of various Orange relay teams. The 3A State Track and Field Championships will be held on Saturday at North Carolina A&T University in Greensboro on the Belk Track. Hampton will look to become Orange’s first state champion since Jamar Davis in 2018 and only the second in the past decade.