Plano East’s Philip Reed will represent the Panthers in this week’s area meet in the 110 hurdles and 300 hurdles. Photo by Jerry Winfrey / C&S Media

By David Wolman

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With the District 6-6A track and field meet being held in their home stadium, Plano East took advantage of the familiarity that it has with Tom Kimbrough Stadium.

The Panthers qualified for the area meet in nine events, set five personal records and broke one freshman record.

Earlier in the season, Kourtney Houston broke the Plano East freshman record in the girls’ shot put. In last week’s district meet, she broke her own record. She finished in second place with a toss of 36 feet, 11 inches, which was 2 feet, 4 inches further than her previous best mark. She also qualified for the area meet in the discus after recording a personal-best toss of 114-3. 

The top four finishers in each event earn an automatic qualification into last Thursday’s area meet, which was held at Ron Poe Stadium in McKinney.

Plano East was particularly on point in the hurdles, with Caitlyn Tran, Hannah Reed and Philip Reed all placing in the top four of their respective events.

Philip Reed qualified for area in both hurdles’ events, earning second place in the 110 hurdles with a PR of 13.83 and also took third in the 300 hurdles with a 38.36. 

Tran and Hannah Reed both ran to PRs in the girls’ 100 hurdles, finishing in second and third place, respectively, with times of 14.42 and 14.76, earning them berths into the area meet.

Liana Wright is an area qualifier in three events – 100 dash, 4×100 and 4×200. She ran to a 11.93 in the 100, good for second place. In the 4×100, she teamed with Payten Cooper, Simone Heard and Karis Jenkins, with that quartet earning fourth place in 47.82. In the 4×200, Cooper, Kosiso Ngadi, Jenkins and Wright finished in fourth place with a 1:41.86.

Plano East made it a clean sweep of the girls’ relay after Ngadi, Cooper, Goodness Dikeocha and Hannah Reed took fourth in the 4:00.83.

Jenkins also punched her ticket in the area meet in the 100-meter dash, earning fourth place with a 12.05.