The Charles Henderson Track and Field team is in the home stretch of their 2018 regular season.

With just two meets remaining until the start of the sectional meet, head coach Phillip Jones has liked what he has seen out of his young squad.

The Trojans entered the season with a different game plan in mind for how they were going to prepare for the season. The change started in the weight room.

“I did something different, something I have never done before,” Jones said. “We hit the weights early to get ready for track season. We did a little bit more when it came to weight lifting.”

The weight lifting has paid off for the members of the Trojan Javelin team. Both the boy’s and girls are ranked in the top five in the state.

Leading the Trojans Javelin team is Jamal Smith on the boy’s side and Sydney Watson on the girls.

“Jamal Smith is in the top five in the state right now,” Jones said. “Sydney Watson is in the top two right now.”

The Charles Henderson girl’s track team is relatively young according to Jones. The Trojan’s showed a lot of promise last season and, according to Jones, they have carried that over into 2018.

“Our girls are coming along pretty well, better than I expected,” Jones said. “That’s a good thing because we only have 12 or 13 girls. They are improving every track meet in the advance 4×1 and in their individual meets.”

Two of the younger runners on the girl’s track team are sisters Gabriel and Victoria Stephens.

“One is an eighth grader and one is a ninth grader,” Phillips said. “They are running 13.4 and 13.5, so they are improving a lot.”
Jones hopes to build his team around the two sisters along with Watson.

“We have a couple of young girls coming along and we are trying to build the team around them (Stephens sisters) because they had so much success last year,” Jones said.

On the boy’s side, the Trojans have gotten high production out of Camron Martin and Keelan White.

“They are both my 400 runners,” Jones said, “Keelan was pretty successful last year. He made the finals in the boy’s 400 and he is running strong again this year along with Camron Martin.”

The Trojans have two more meets before their sectional meet at McGill-Toolen and one area Jones would like to see improve is the 4×100.

“It needs to come down,” Jones said. “We have the potential, but the change is not there. We need to work heavily on that as well as our starts and finishes.”

The members of the boy’s and girl’s track team are: Rayvion Williams, Caniyah Burks, Damarion Carlton, Caleb Guice, Torrey Fayson, Joshua Johnson, Chrisna Sorn, Jonathon Carter, Sherell Walker, Zuri Lampley, Robert Grady, Jaden Scott, Zavion Caffie, Camron Martin, Keelan White, Ryan Barnes, Mashawn Mathis, Danny Truong, Jared Wilson, Kendarius Robinson, Laura Shumba, Trevon Miles, Sydney Watson, Temoni Blair, Nyasia Williams, Victoria Stephens, Jamal Smith, Chance Pollard, Cobi Jones, Cyterrence Potts, Jordan Dix-Hudson, James Allen, Markevious Johnson, Taylor Saylor, Makayla Green, Yesenia Torellas, Isis Torellas and Jimelia Woods.