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BALTIMORE -- An unusual thing happened as Marquis Woodyard approached the finish line in Saturday's state track and field meet.The left foot of the Thomas Johnson junior clipped the last hurdle in the Class 4A 300-meter hurdle final and he heard a collective gasp from the crowd at Morgan State's Hughes Stadium.
"That's never happened to me before. I never thought about falling over a hurdle," said Woodyard, whose nightmare scenario was suddenly beginning to unfold in front of him.
But after stumbling a few steps, Woodyard stayed on his feet to win the race thanks to, he said, his strength and will to win.
"I just wasn't going to lose," he said after claiming his first state titles by sweeping the 110 and 300 hurdles and leading the Patriots to the 4A team championship with 60 points.
Woodyard was one of eight champions from Frederick County on the third and final day of the state meet, which featured all four classifications.
The others were Brunswick's Grant Smith in the 1A discus and Nathan Diaz in the 1A pole vault, TJ's Emily Vannoy in the 4A shot put and Cenarda Jackson in the 4A long jump, Middletown's Allison Hemme in the 2A pole vault, Urbana's Dustin Fishman in the 3A pole vault and Tuscarora's Dominic Clarke in the 3A 400 dash.
"What a great day for Frederick County track and field," said TJ boys coach Nick Snyder, who directed the Patriots to their first outdoor team title since 2000, when the Patriots were competing in 3A.
It's the third overall state title in track and field for the TJ boys, who shared the indoor team championship with Gaithersburg in February.
On this occasion, the Patriots were nine points better than the second-place Trojans.
"This has been our goal since Nov. 15," Snyder said, referring to the first day of indoor track practice.
"We wanted to put a banner on the wall. The indoor season was a nice surprise. It showed us that our kids were further along than we were thinking. But this is the one we have wanted and been working toward all along."
Snyder called Woodyard the linchpin of the entire effort because he wasn't even running the hurdles on a regular basis at the start of the outdoor season.
Woodyard delivered 20 points to the Patriots with winning times of 14.19 (wind-aided) in the 110 hurdles and 38.69 in the 300 hurdles despite the stumble near the finish.
Then, in the final race of the meet, he ran to final leg of the 1,600 relay in 49 seconds flat to push the Patriots team, which also included Jordan Dorsey, Kevin King and Richard Newman, into third place in 3:23.78.
Those efforts, combined with Erick Artusio's state-record victory in the pole vault (15 feet, 2 inches) on Friday and Nick Forbes' third-place finish in the discus (167-3), were enough to seal the championship for the Patriots.
"Coach Snyder has really been harping on that all season," Woodyard said. "But, to be honest with you, I wasn't thinking about it too much. I knew that if everyone on the team did their jobs, the points would come together and we would get the win."
The TJ girls, meanwhile, on the strength of the third consecutive state title for Vannoy in the shot put and Jackson's long jump victory, finished third in the team standings with 50 points.
Vannoy followed her victory in Friday's discus with a winning toss of 45-51Ú4 in the shot put, which fell short of her previous winning throws in the state outdoor meet.
At the time, both of those throws set state records, including the existing mark of 48-73Ú4, which she set last year.
Vannoy wrapped up her high school career with six state championships in the shot put, including three indoor titles in a row.
Jackson, meanwhile, unfurled into a winning jump of 17-8 in the long jump.
Another one of the local stars was Clarke in the 3A boys meet.
After running the anchor leg for Tuscarora's winning 800 relay team Friday, Clarke won the 400 dash in 48.92 seconds, finished third in the 200 in 22.35 seconds (wind-aided) and then ran a terrific anchor leg in the 1,600 relay to help his team finish second to Westlake in 3:23.88.
Thanks to all of that work, the Titans finished fourth in the 3A team standings with 42 points.
"We came here without any throwers or without anyone competing in the field events," Titans coach Ronnie Beard said. "I'd say we pulled our weight."
The Middletown girls saw their run of four consecutive 2A teams titles over the indoor and outdoor seasons come to an end.
But Hemme won the pole vault by going over the bar at 9 feet and fellow senior Brittney Caudle finished second in her three events, the 800, 1,600 and 3,200, to help the Knights finish sixth overall with 44 points.
Caudle, who ran the sprinting events during her freshman season, will continue her distance running career at NCAA Division I Appalachian State on a full scholarship.
"Everything seemed to be the perfect fit there," said Caudle, who plans to study fine arts in college. "I love the outdoors and the mountains. So that's a good place to be."
Diaz and Fishman made it a clean sweep for the county in the boys pole vault, following victories by Middletown's Alex Edelmann in 2A and Artusio in 4A.
Diaz went over the bar at 13 feet to capture the 1A title, while Fishman soared 14 feet to claim the 3A title.
For the 1A boys, Catoctin finished fifth overall with 44 points, while Brunswick was seventh with 35.
The Railroaders' Smith added another state title to his collection by winning the discus with a throw of 155 feet.
The other local teams to place in the top 10 were the Middletown boys (seventh in 2A with 25 points), the Urbana boys (ninth in 3A with 24 points), the Brunswick girls (sixth in 1A with 22 points) and the Linganore girls (ninth in 4A with 20 points).
Brunswick's Sara Fisher placed second in the 1A 1,600 run in 5:15.20, while Urbana's Nick Huang was second in the 3A 1,600 in 4:18.89.
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