By Dan McWilliams
The Knoxville Catholic High School boys and girls track teams again produced state champions in the large class at this year’s state meet in Murfreesboro in May.
Jake Renfree, a runner-up to teammate Georde Goodwyn in last year’s 1,600-meter run finals, captured the state title in the event this year with a time of 4 minutes, 12.70 seconds, in a field of 16 participants. Renfree won by a margin of 1:85 seconds over a runner from Centennial.
Renfree also placed 11th out of 13 in the mile run at the prestigious Brooks PR Invitational on June 8 in Seattle, a national event featuring the top boys runners in the country. He posted a time of 4:12.13 at Shoreline Stadium.
The KCHS girls 3,200-run team of Shila Kapaya, Eleanor Mancini, Callie Grace Tucker, and Ellie Wolski claimed a state title in the event with a time of 9:19.64, winning by a little more than 3 seconds over Hardin Valley Academy. The Lady Irish were second in the state in the event last year.
In other state-meet results for the KCHS boys, Devin Sullivan came in fourth in the 3,200 run in a time of 9:42.62. John Rentenbach placed sixth in the pole vault after clearing 13 feet, 6 inches. Renfree scored a 14th- place finish in the 800 run in a time of 2:03.72.
As a team, the KCHS boys scored 18 points to place ninth out of 17 scoring schools.
For the Knoxville Catholic girls, Kapaya placed third (11:15.07) and Tucker fourth (11:15.79) in the 3,200 run. Tucker also finished sixth in the 1,600 run in a time of 5:14.17.
The Lady Irish scored 24 points to place ninth out of 22 teams in the state meet.
