BATON ROUGE – Future Lady Tiger track stars Samantha Levin and Montenae Roye-Speight helped build upon the reputation of one of the nation’s premier recruiting classes for 2011 with their performance Saturday in leading Ladue Horton Watkins High School at the Missouri Class 4A Outdoor State Track & Field Championships held at Dwight Reed Stadium in Jefferson City.
While taking down three Missouri Class 4A state meet records during the competition, each shattered PRs in their individual events with performances that rank among the Top 5 nationally for the 2011 season.
In all, Levin and Roye-Speight accounted for 31 of 34 points for Ladue Horton Watkins High School with their effort to lead their team to a fifth-place finish in the final Class 4A team standings.
Levin slashed nearly two full seconds off her previous personal best in the 800-meter final as she won her third-straight Class 4A state championship in the event with a meet record 2 minutes, 6.74 seconds, which ranks No. 3 nationwide among prep 800-meter runners for the 2011 season and No. 1 in the nation among members of the Class of 2011. She advanced to the final with a short-lived PR of 2:08.55 run on Friday.
Levin has dropped her personal record by more than three seconds during the 2011 outdoor season, as her performance on Saturday afternoon eclipsed the 19-year-old meet record set back in 1992.
In what has been a banner season for the St. Louis native, Levin has also established a personal best in the 400-meter dash in recent weeks after claiming the event crown in 54.46 seconds with the Victoria Reaves Invitational held on April 30. That ranks her No. 8 this spring among recruits in the Class of 2011.
“I was trying to break the record in the prelims and did by about a second. After I saw my time in the first race, I knew I was ready to run in the final,” Levin said. “Since it was our last high school meet together, I think we just wanted to leave the track with no regrets. I know I’m very excited to be a Lady Tiger.”
While Levin wrapped up her prep career as a three-time state champion at 800 meters, Roye-Speight took home her first career Class 4A state title with a record-setting sprint of her own in the 400-meter final.
Roye-Speight dropped her personal record in the 400-meter dash by more than a half second by capturing the gold medal with a meet-record time of 53.84. By running the No. 4-ranked time in the country overall and the No. 2-ranked time among 400-meter sprinters with the Class of 2011, Roye-Speight dropped a PR of 54.35 she set last summer at the 2010 USATF Youth Outdoor Track & Field Championships.
Roye-Speight also advanced to the state final in the 200-meter dash, where she picked up another point in the event with an eighth-place finish overall to score 11 total points in individual events.
“Before going to state, I told my coach that I wanted to break the state record,” Roye-Speight said. “I was not really surprised to break the record because I had committed to doing so in the weeks and months here leading up to the meet. I promised myself that I would run a 52 before I get on campus, and that is still the goal for me. We want to be an impact to the team right away. We know we can do that.”
In addition, Levin and Roye-Speight led Ladue Horton Watkins High School to a successful defense of its Class 4A state championship in the 4×400-meter relay in record-breaking fashion.
With Roye-Speight running the second leg and Levin running the anchor leg, Ladue Horton Watkins set a new meet record of 3:48.00 to take down the 25-year-old standard set way back during the 1986 season. It is a performance that ranks No. 15 among high school mile relay teams for the 2011 outdoor season.
The stars for Ladue Horton Watkins High School were not the only future Lady Tigers to shine during the competition at the Missouri Class 4A Outdoor State Championships this weekend as McCluer North High School’s Kendra White took home a pair of silver medals in her final state championship appearance with her performance in both the 400-meter dash and 4×400-meter relay.
White finished runner-up to her future LSU teammate in the 400-meter final after running a 2011 seasonal best of 54.55 to finish the weekend ranked No. 10 among prep 400-meter sprinters in the Class of 2011. It is an event in which White has run a lifetime best of 53.72, when she struck gold in the 400-meter dash at the last summer’s USATF Youth Outdoor Track & Field Championships ahead of Roye-Speight.
White also led McCluer North High School to a silver-medal winning second-place finish in the 4×400, as her team clocked 3:53.57 to finish runner-up to the 3:48.00 by Ladue Horton Watkins High School.
“I’m so excited that we are going to be Lady Tigers together,” Roye-Speight said. “We will be there just a few short months from now. It’s going to be hard leaving Ladue, but I’m very excited to work with Coach (Dennis) Shaver and Coach (Debbie) Parris. We know we have so much more left to accomplish.”