Winston Salem, N.C. – Tiara Cox headlined North Greenville's week at the Conference Carolinas Champions with the team's lone conference championship at the JDL Fast Track. 
 
Tiara Cox earned the top spot in the 60 – meter race on Monday while setting a new personal and school record in the process. She finished with a time of 7.56 in the 60 and followed it up with a third place finish in the 200 – meter with a time of 25.53 which is also a lifetime personal best. 
 
JoAnn Smiling finished second in the long jump with a distance of 5.63 – meters, setting a new school a lifetime persona record in the process. Smiling also set a new personal record in the 60 – meter with a time of 7.86 seconds. 
 
Avery Shope finished second in the mile run and also set a new school record. She clocked in with a time of 2:25 which was also a new personal best in the indoor mile. Shope finished fourth in the 800 – meter with a time of 2:25. Carleigh Vaughn finished the 400 – meter in fourth place with a time of 59.56, a new personal best. 
 
In the relay races, the team of Tiara Cox, Carleigh Vaughn, and JoAnn Smiling finished second overall in the 4x400 with a time of 4:01. In the medley relay, Riley Nicholson, Kylie Futrell, Zoie Justice, and Avery Shope finished in 12:59, a new school record and fourth overall. 
 
Paris Alsup and Rebekah Haddad both set new personal records in the 5000 – meter with times of 20:05 and 20:45. 
 
From Coach Stober 
 
I am so proud of both teams. Conference championships bring out the best in everyone competing. It is competitive and points are not easy to come by. Both of our teams performed when it mattered the most…at the conference championship. As a coach, that's all you can ask for. 
 
We got off to a bit of a rocky start on the men's side. We lost out on some early points that we should've gotten, but things turned around quickly in the long jump. Terrique Webb put out a jump over 7 meters that no one else was able to match. That earned him the conference title…as a true freshman I might add. Royal also came through big in the long jump. Going into the meet, he was seeded well outside of the top 8. But he performed when it mattered most and scored some huge points for us finishing fifth. After the long jump we had a lot of guys advance to finals from the prelims. You can't score points if you don't make finals. So the fact that we had a lot of guys make finals set us up for a solid second day. To cap off the first day, Hayden Goode had a career performance in the 5K. He held on to the top guy from our conference for the entire race and ended up running a HUGE lifetime PB while also breaking the school record for the indoor 5K, all while getting big second place points. On day two it was the jumps once again that got us going. Royal Foster finished third in the triple jump. True freshman Bryce Hamby won the conference title in the men's pole vault while Damon Worley finished fourth. Those were big points for us. We had two runner ups on day two. True freshman Jacobie Sims in the 60 hurdles, and Antavious Lawton in the 400. We were also able to get points in the Mile (Brandon Dugar-8th), 800 (Gray McIntyre-4th), and 200 (Antavious Lawton-8th). The men finished the meet off delivering big performances in the final two events. Hayden Goode doubled off his 5K with another career type performance running another big PB in the 3K and finishing fourth. And in the final event of the day, in what I would consider our program's staple event for a long time, our men's 4x4 brought home the gold. 
 
The women far exceeded expectations and projections going into the conference championship. We had about as good of a day one as we could've had. Our women's DMR started off the day finishing fourth behind three really strong teams. JoAnn Smiling had the long jump sequence of her life as she PB'd by close to a foot! She ended up finishing second in an event that she was seeded eighth. Those were BIG points for us at that point in the meet. Then the Tiara Cox show continued. Tiara ran the second fastest 60 meter time in the prelims. Once again setting a new PB, school record, and this time running well under the NCAA DII provisional mark. She then came back to run the third fastest qualifying time in the 200. Running yet another PB. We also had Hannah Hill qualify for finals in both the 200 and 400, and Carleigh Vaughn qualify for the finals in the 400. True freshman Avery Shope got things started off on day two as she made an honest race out of the number one seed in the Mile to finish second while running a HUGE PB and crushing her previous school record. Carleigh came through with some big points in the 400 finishing fourth. Then once again, the Tiara Cox show. She ended up winning the 60 meter dash by .001 seconds in a big upset. She managed to come back less than a hour later to finish third in the 200. Avery Shope also managed to come back just a couple of hours after her big mile performance to finish fourth in the 800. Riley Nicholson also scored critical points in the 800 finishing in fifth, just behind Avery. Hannah also scored points in the 200 finishing fifth. The final event of the meet was the women's 4x4. All four of our runners had tired legs going into it. But they still went out and got a second place finish. 
 
I'm just so proud of our team. The way they rose to the occasion and performed when it mattered the most. The way they supported one another. The close bond that they have with one another. It's just a special group and I'm so blessed to be a part of it. Our coaches…Coach Douglas, Coach Bob, and Coach Mal…they are amazing. I'm so thankful for them and for their love for our athletes and how they invest in them. I'm grateful for all of the individuals that make up our track and field program. And I'm proud of each of them. This was a great conclusion to what has been a historic and record breaking indoor season. On to outdoor season, where I hope we can see more of the same."