DOVER — As is often the case, Elijah Williams didn’t get off to the fastest start in the 110-meter hurdles on Saturday.

Almost halfway through the state final, the lanky Smyrna High senior was only in third place.

“By the fifth hurdle, I started passing them both,” Williams said about the two runners just ahead of him. “I saw them get out of my peripheral (vision) and I knew I had passed them. So I felt real good.”

And by the time he reached the finish line, Williams was alone in front as he brought home his second straight state title in the boys’ Division I 110 hurdles in a time of 14.23 seconds,

The race was one of the highlights for Williams, who also won the high jump (6-foot-8), took second in the 300 hurdles (39.03 seconds) and third in the long jump (21-1).

Williams was one of several Henlopen Conference athletes to make strong individual showings as the two-day DIAA track & field championships concluded at Dover on a somewhat rainy Saturday.

As expected, the team titles again belonged to New Castle County private schools: Salesianum (Div. I boys), Saint Mark’s (Div. II boys), Padua (Div. I girls) and Tatnall (Div. II girls).

Cape Henlopen, Caesar Rodney and Dover did take second through fourth place in the boys’ Division I standings while Polytech and Smyrna placed third and fourth in Division I girls.

Individually, though, Downstaters made their mark.

Dover sophomore Jaheim Cole continued to show his versatility by winning state titles in both the Division I 100 meters (11.01) and the long jump (22-4.5). He also ran a leg on the Senators’ second-place 400-meter relay team, and placed fourth in the triple jump ( 44-6.5).

Cole qualified first in the 100 with a personal-best time of 10.99 seconds.

“After conferences, I’ve really been working on my start — keeping my head down and finishing the race,” he said. “Everybody sees me as a jumper but I just won the 100. Now it’s like I’m not just a one-trick pony. I’ve got multiple events.

“I’m very proud because I can help my team in more ways. I believed in myself, I just had to get it done.”

One of the reasons that Cole didn’t win the 100 meters in the Henlopen Conference meet was because he had to contend with Seaford standout Jazonte Levan.

The Blue Jays’ senior repeated as Division II state champion in the 100, winning the event in 10.86 seconds. Levan is headed for USC in college where he’ll join former Sussex Tech state champion Yougendy Mauricette.

Levan said he knew the rainy weather would probably prevent anybody from running a fast time.

“I just came out here to win, not to run a fast time,” he said. “I just came out to compete like always. It feels good. It’s never a dull moment winning. It never gets old.”

But Levan’s most-impressive feat may have been running the final leg on Seaford’s winning 400-meter relay (42.61 seconds) Levan’s overtook two runners just before the finish line to pull out the state title.

Alex Jean, Zahir Seymore and Tre’von-Keith Paulson also ran legs on the winning relay.

“At the 70-meter mark, I was like, ‘Alright, I’ve still got a chance to win,’” said Levan. “I started pushing and saw I passed everybody. I got the lean.”

“I knew once I put us in a good spot, my boys were just going to take over and finish it,” said Seymore.

After finishing third in the 110 hurdles, Caesar Rodney’s Gabe Harris came back and won the 300 hurdles in a time of 38.58 seconds. It was the first individual state title for the sophomore, who is the son of former Dover standout Bruce Harris.

Since he had the state’s top time in the event this season, the younger Harris knew people were expecting him to win.

“I didn’t want to leave anything on the track,” said Harris. “I was like, it’s mine to win, so why not go get it.

“He’s one of my biggest inspirations.” he said about his dad. “I just try to listen to everything he says because he did it before.”

Harris, though, couldn’t catch Smyrna’s Williams in the 110 hurdles.

Eagles’ coach Tyson Tanner wasn’t surprised that Williams was able to pull away down the stretch.

“I appreciate Elijah’s talent,’ said Tanner. “He’s able to gauge where he is and then speed up in the middle of a race. It’s remarkable at this level to be able to do something like that.”

Williams, like all the competitors early in the day, had to deal with a steady rain falling during his race.

“It’s definitely a big factor,” he said. “I was still able to block everything out and still run. At the start, you don’t want to slip, that’s the biggest thing.”

Other Downstate state champions in the boys’ meets were Cape Henlopen’s Bailey Fletcher (Div. I ;pole vault, 14-9), Indian River’s Zhen Wu (Div. II pole vault, 12-0), Woodbridge’s Derrick Sirmons (Div. II discus, 169-05) and CR’s boys’ Division I 1,600 relay team (3:21.74)..

Smyrna’s Turpin takes title

On the girls’ side, Smyrna’s Aaliyah Turpin continued to make a name for herself. The sophomore won the Division I 100-meter hurdles (14.64 seconds) and finished second in the 100 meters (12.31 seconds) to only Padua standout Juliana Balon (12.26).

Turpin hadn’t forgotten that she’d gotten disqualified in the hurdles at last year’s state meet.

“I feel like I got a good start — that was my problem last year,” she said.
“i’m pretty proud about that,” Turpin added about her runnerup finish in the 100. “I’m not upset with the results because my time is getting better. That’s all I really care about.”

“I think she may be one of the best athletes the state has seen some time,” said Tanner. “She is an athlete that has a range.”

Polytech’s relay team of Marayah Walker, Kristian Dorsett, Zion Greene and Nyah Ballard thought they won the Division I 800 relay. But about 20 minutes later they were told they were disqualified for a zone violation.

Undaunted, the foursome came back to win the 400 relay in a time of 49.12.

“We felt defeated,” said Walker. “We’ve been winning all season. We were out of the zone apparently. We’ve never had that problem.

“We just had to give it our all. We kind of had to redeem ourselves. We ran our fastest time. We did what we had to do.”

Other Downstate girls’ state champions were Lake Forest’s Kirja Hickman (Div. II shot put, (39-5) and Sussex Academy’s Katya Geyer (Div. II high jump, 5-0).

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