MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — Although they took different approaches to the race, Red Bank’s Claire Turner and Baylor’s Hannah Jumper easily won their respective classification’s 3200-meter run Wednesday night at Middle Tennessee State University.
Turner ran a personal best time of 11:07.30 to claim the Class A/AA state title, while Jumper slowed her pace on the final lap, finishing in 11:10.29. Turner took the lead on the second lap, then lapped three other runners before finishing more than 24 seconds ahead of second-place finisher Barbara Ball of David Lipscomb.
“Everybody pushes too hard to start this race, so I just tried to relax and remember we had seven more laps to go and I would be fine,” Turner said. “I wasn’t worried about saving anything for tomorrow, I’m just taking it one race at a time and I’m going to try to run fast every race.”
Jumper defended her D-II title by pulling away from the pack just past the halfway point. The junior’s time was just off her personal best of 11:03.04 set earlier this year.
“There’s no doubt she could have gone under eleven minutes but with two tough races to run tomorrow, and such a big lead, I told her to back down on the last lap,” Baylor coach Bill McMahan said. “That’s a testament to her because she was willing to do that for the team and not worry about individual time.
“We needed her to conserve some energy for the mile and the 800 tomorrow and she did it without any questions.”
Heading into today’s girls’ meet, Baylor leads the D-II team standings by nine points. Both Turner and Jumper will compete in the 1600 and 800 meter runs today at MTSU.
McMinn Central’s Dianna Eddington finished third in the A/AA race and Baylor’s Tenley Godfrey was fifth in D-II. Bradley Central’s Jacquelin Pitcock finished fifth in Class AAA and Walker Valley’s Victoria Yates was sixth.