Marty Gordon
NRVsports@ourvalley.org
Blacksburg’s Cole Beck and Auburn’s Caitlin Dominy ran away from their competition this spring. Both brought back state titles to the New River Valley in their respective track divisions: Beck in Class 4 after dominating the Class 3 classification for the past two years, and Dominy in Class 1.
For their effort, they are the News Messenger/Radford News Journal’s Spring Athletes of the Year. Beck, who will run track and play football at Virginia Tech, is one of the top sprinters in Virginia High School League (VHSL) history.
In 2017, Beck was the runner-up in the 100 meters at the New Balance National Championships with a time of 10.41 seconds and won the 100 and 200-meter dashes the last three years at the Virginia High School League (VHSL) state meets. His personal bests are 10.37 in the 100-meter dash and 21.28 in the 200.
The Bruin also starred on the relay teams for Blacksburg, anchoring the 4×100-meter relay to a state title in his last three seasons.
“I chose VT for several reasons: the quality of education, the beautiful town and campus, the relationships I had developed with the coaching staffs during the recruiting process and the opportunity to be a part of two elite athletic programs (track and football),” Beck said. “After visiting several schools and talking things over with my parents, it really was an easy decision to stay home and attend VT.”
Dominy had similar luck this spring, winning both the 800 and 1,600 meters for the Eagles who brought home a girls’ state title.
“I am very happy with the way that the spring went. As a team, we had our eyes set on winning another state title from day one, so both individually and as a team we had to work extremely hard throughout the entire spring season and it payed off for everyone,” Dominy said.
Individually, she went into the Class 1 meet as the defending 800-meter champion and ranked second in the 1,600.
“So, at states, I just ran my races and tried to focus on doing everything I could to help the team score more points. In the 1,600, I was able to stay with the pack for about 900 meters and then make a surge to take the lead. I felt great throughout the entire race and it helped that I had fresh legs. For the 800, I knew that I just needed to run my race. So, I took the lead from the very beginning and just focused on keeping my form smooth and strong, which led me to another win,” Dominy said.
As a track and field athlete, according to the Auburn runner, you can’t skip workouts or sell yourself short on any aspect because of the individuality of the sport. “Everything that you do all season will show. So, I believe that working hard, eating right, and getting the right amount of rest helped me and the rest of my team to excel this season,” she said.
Her personal records are 2:26 in the 800, 5:34 in the 1,600 and 12:15 in the 3,200. He owns Auburn’s mile and 2-mile marks.
While Beck graduates and will run at Virginia Tech, Dominy, who is a rising senior, will have another shot to better her personal records and pick up some more indoor and outdoor titles.
“Personally, I hope that I will continue to run in the future and in college, but we will see what this next year brings,” she said.
Other outstanding performances on the track this spring included: Auburn’s Madelyn Sale notched a state individual title with a throw of 39-1 3/4 in the shot put, a personal best. She would finish second in the discus;
Solomon Ghosh also gave the Bruins a top spot in the discus with a throw of 171-3;
Nolan Harris claimed individual wins for the Auburn boys in both the 1,600 and 3,200-meter runs. Harris’ finish of 4:29.79 was almost 12 seconds ahead of second place Gavin Grossman of PH in the 1,600. The runner leaves Auburn as one of the top cross country and distance runners in the entire state;
Tyler Wilson also took first place for Auburn in the 800 meters as the boys’ team brought home another state championship;
Christiansburg High School’s distance medley relay team won the Emerging Elite division at the New Balance National Outdoors meet in Greensboro, North Carolina. The team included: Trey Wilson, Ethan Mills, Cooper Neeble and Alex Watty.