Howard’s fabulous freshman

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — The buzz began working its way through the spectators early in the evening, just before the sun had set behind the Dean Hayes track stadium at Middle Tennessee State University.

In the second event of the night session of the girls’ state meet, the overflow crowd of nearly 2,000 came to its feet and a local sprinter put her name on everyone’s lips.

When LaQuisha Jackson took the baton for the final leg of the Class A/AA 4x100 meter relay, the Howard freshman trailed four other runners. But 10 meters into her stride Jackson began picking off competitors one by one until she had pulled away from the field, beating the closest runner by more than a half second.

“I knew once she got the baton her competitiveness would kick in and she would do something special,” Howard coach Stanley Jackson said. “She didn’t disappoint.”

Jackson then confirmed her arrival as the state’s top sprinter by dominating the 100-meter dash and the 200 and anchoring the Lady Hustlin’ Tigers’ 4x400 relay team to a first-place finish. Her 200 win vaulted Howard ahead of Martin Luther King High by one point, and the 4x400 victory sealed the program’s first state title in more than 25 years.

Even other competitors lingered on the infield to watch each time Jackson ran.

“I had heard about her and just wanted to watch for myself,” TSSAA executive director Ronnie Carter said. “She’s got that gift that makes the crowd start ‘oohing’ and ‘aahing’ when she runs. Four first-place finishes and she made them all look easy. Man, she’s the real deal.”

Despite a slow start in the 100, Jackson’s time in the 100 (11.87 seconds) was the fastest in all three classifications, and her 200 time (24.51) was just four-tenths of a second off a 30-year-old state record.

“I try to block it out when I hear the crowd cheering and getting up and stomping,” Jackson said. “It feels good and gets you pumped, but I’m just trying to run my race.

“I didn’t do a very good job of getting out to start in the 100, but I knew I could make it up once I took off. Once I made my transition and looked up, I could tell I was close enough that I would get it. There wasn’t anything else to do but to chase them down and catch them. I wasn’t going to let my team down.”