High jumper finishes on high note

Photo by Wayland D. Clark
At full speed, Dripping Springs’ Sofia Farris clears the final hurdle of her high school career while running in the Girls 6A 300-meter hurdles at the UIL State Track & Field meet at Mike A. Myers Stadium in Austin. Farris finished in fifth place with a time of 43.09, which was only .65 seconds from a bronze metal.[/caption]

AUSTIN — Dripping Springs’ Ava Williamson started her practice jumps in a steady light rain as the field events began at the UIL State Track & Field meet on Saturday morning in Austin. Williamson and other competitors in the 6A High Jump event tried not to let it affect them. The UIL and stadium operations workers did all they could to keep the surface dry with squeegee rollers and leaf blowers, but the weather had other ideas.

“I was excited to be here, but [we] just didn’t have a good day. We’d seen the forecast and knew it was going to rain and coach Morris [girls track head coach] and I talked about it,” Williamson said during a two-and-a-half-hour weather delay. “I just took the mentality of, I’m a senior, this is my last time jumping and I want to have fun.”

Rain continued to fall and only a few minutes after Williamson’s final attempt at 5 feet, 2 inches, the entire meet was temporarily suspended.

Rockwall’s Claire Lowery — who in Class 6A, won a bronze medal in 2021 and silver in 2022 — won the gold this year with a height of 5 feet, 10 inches.

Some of the best athletes in all sports can be found in Class 6A. As the high school athletics season ends, Dripping Springs has done well in sports in its first year of competition and track and field is no exception. Along with Williams at the UIL State Meet, Tomsen Vickery competed in the discus throw and Sofia Farris ran in the 300-meter hurdles.

After spinning one and a half times to build momentum, Dripping Springs’ Tomsen Vickery, a junior, releases the discus in 6A competition at the UIL State Track & Field meet Saturday in Austin.[/caption]