Buchanan, Reese lead Belleville West to sweep of Belleville City Track Championship

Belleville West coach Patton Segraves still isn’t sure what events senior sprinter Deshon Buchanan will run in at the upcoming Class 3A boys track and field sectional.

But it’s a good bet the 400 meter race will be one of them. Still a relative newcomer in the most challenging and longest sprint, Buchanan set a new Belleville City Track Meet record of 49.32 seconds as he led the Maroons to an eighth straight city title on Friday at Belleville East High School.

Buchanan, who also shines in the 60-meter dash indoors, won the 100 meters and then capped his day with a sparkling time of 22.2 seconds in the 200 meters for the Maroons, who finished with 100 points, 31 more than Belleville East accumulated.

“We haven’t made up our mind what we’re going to do yet with Deshon. But the way, he looked today in the 400 meters — breaking the city record — I think the 400 meters is his best event,” Segraves said. “We’re thinking maybe the 4 x 200 meter relay, but we may let him decide what he wants to do.”

Brian Gichuru won the 1,600 and 3,200 meter titles for Belleville West while Hunter Cason added to the Maroons’ domination of the running events by taking the 800 meters. West outscored East 32-0 in the distance events as it breezed to yet another city championship.

“The only one we’ve lost since I’ve been here was the one in 2008. So we’ve got a nice run going here,” Segraves said. “You know we lost a lot of top sprinters from last year and we knew that East had a strong team. So before the meet, I challenged the kids and they responded very well.”

Gichuru, one of the top cross country runners in the rugged Southwestern Conference, won the 1,600 meters in 4:45.8 seconds and also took the 3,200 meters in 10:56.5.

The Belleville West boys team wasn’t the only Maroons team to come out on top on a beautiful warm sunshine-filled spring day Friday afternoon.

The Belleville West girls team completed the sweep of the annual competition as it defeated East and Althoff in the girls’ division.

Other Maroons winning in the boys division included Ian Parker in the long jump, Austin Blakeslee in the pole vault, Stacey Ware in the discus and Ken Nesbitt in the shot put.

As expected, senior William Session led the way for Belleville East. One of the premier athletes in the nation in the hurdles, Session won the 110-meter hurdles and also took the 300 meter hurdles in a time of 39.07 seconds.

Senior Amani Franklin took the triple jump with a leap of 45 feet 2 inches, while Freddie Waller won the high jump with a leap of 6 feet.

Althoff finished third in the competition with 13 points.

Frazier, Reese lead Maroons to girls title

A senior Dierrah Reese saved her best performance in the city competition for her last as she teamed with junior Kameron Frazier to win four titles as the Maroons made first-year coach Sally Stephens city championship a winning one.

Reese won the discus with a throw of 100 feet, 7 inches and also took the shot put championship with an effort of 37 feet, 11 1/2 inches while Frazier won the 100 meters in 14.4 seconds and the 400 meters in 60.23 seconds.

West won the title with 107 points, 42 more than Belleville East (65). Althoff tallied only three points in the girls division.

The title was extra special for Stephens, a longtime Maroons assistant coach under Paul James, who retired following the 2014-15 school year.

But after watching the Lancers celebrate last year, Stephens said she was glad to take the girls title back to the west end of Belleville.

“It’s great to be the city champions. It’s been a while coming,” Stephens said. “ Dierrah (Reese) winning the shot put and discus was great and Kameron (Frazier) winning two events was important as well. But everybody contributed. There weren’t really any surprises. It was just a very good team performance. I was very pleased.”

Other individual winners for Belleville West were Re’Jenae Davis in the long jump, Kim McWherter in the triple jump, Kelvi Searcy in the 100 meters hurdles and De’Jah Campbell in the 300 meter hurdles.

Winning titles for Belleville East were Tamar Mosby in the high jump, Sydney Hartung in the 3,200 meters, Selelya Wilson in 800 meters and Sarah Gompers in the 1,600 meters.

This story was originally published April 22, 2016 at 11:24 PM with the headline "Buchanan, Reese lead Belleville West to sweep of Belleville City Track Championship."