Worthy of a Picasso

Williams, Bridges, Meyer state champions

By Larry Fleming

If Northwest Whitfield’s spring were a painting, it would be an artistic masterpiece, dominated by the school’s blue and orange colors, and a testament to the mosaic the Lady Bruins and Bruins were able to put together — three individual state championships and one team title.



Featured prominently on the canvas would be Morgan Williams, Jake Bridges and A.J. Meyer. All three rang up individual state championships in track and field, and Williams doubled her pleasure with two titles — barely an hour apart — in the 400- and 800-meter runs at the state meet at Hugh Mills Stadium in Albany.

Championships for Bridges and Meyer came in quick fashion as well. They captured Class 4A state titles in the pole vault and 1,600-meter run, respectively, on the same day at the boys’ meet at Jefferson High School’s Memorial Stadium in Commerce.

For another superlative performance in her final year at Northwest, Williams has been selected The Daily Citizen All-Area Spring Team Female Athlete of the Year for the third consecutive season. Williams beat out classmate Lauren Giambastiani for this year’s honor. Giambastiani finished second while leading the Lady Bruins to the state golf championship at Dalton Golf and Country Club.

Bridges and Meyer, after claiming their first prep titles, share the Male Athlete of the Year award. Another chief contender for the male honor was Bruins standout Dean Haynes.

“It’s a huge accomplishment,” Williams said of winning two state titles. “Right after it happened I was overwhelmed and ecstatic, really just in shock after four years of running, setting my goals high and actually being able to achieve those goals. To do it in both events was just a blessing.”

Williams began putting a lid on her prep career by winning the 400- and 800-meter events, finishing third in the long jump, and helping the Lady Bruins’ 4x400 relay team take first place in school-record time at the Region 7-4A meet. She ran a 57.78-second 400, a 2:22.4 800 and the 4x400 relay squad — Taylor Staten, Jenna Williams, Kelsey Kirk and Morgan Williams — posted a record time of 4:05.35.

Williams, a senior who has signed a track scholarship with Kennesaw State University, then focused on the state meet, where she was the No. 1 seed in the 400 and 800.

“The previous three years at state I was the underdog and I was intimidated,” Williams said. “This year, I had a right to be there just like everyone else. I treated it as just another meet. I got on the line to run and didn’t let the nerves, jitters and fear get to me. I ran my races and they ended up the best way possible.”

On “Championship Saturday,” Williams roared to the 400 title with a time of 57.170 to beat Daisy Helm of Starr’s Mill, who ran a 57.730.

In the 800, Williams blistered the HMS track in a school-record time of 2 minutes, 18.09 seconds and beat Southwest DeKalb’s Amber Crews by more than a second. Williams’ time in the 800 beat her own mark of 2:18.19 set a day earlier in qualifying. That effort beat Northwest’s old mark of 2:18.26 set by Shelley Taylor in 2006.

The Lady Bruins’ 4x400 relay team garnered two team points by finishing seventh in 4:13.68.

Lady Bruins coach Richard Taylor, who retired after the season, said Williams leaves after establishing herself as one of the top female track and field performers in school history.

“She has four of our 14 individual records and she has a piece of two relay records, so it doesn’t get much better than that,” Taylor said. “Morgan and Shelley are the two best girls we’ve ever had.”

Williams owns school records in the 200-meters (28.576, 2006), 400 meters (56.63, 2006), 800 meters (2:18.09, 2009) and long jump (16 feet, 10 3/4 inches, 2006). She helped the 400- and 800-meter relay teams set records of 49.82 and 4:05.01, respectively, both of those also coming in 2006, Williams’ freshman year.

Williams said after four years at Northwest, she’s proven herself as a big-time competitor and now gets to do it all over again at Kennesaw State.

“My priority will be the 800,” she said. “Again, my goals are high. I want to win the Atlantic Sun Conference title in the 800 my freshman year. It’s a very reachable goal. I’m not saying it’s going to be easy, but I’m shooting for it. I’m also going to do my best to benefit Kennesaw State.”

Bridges, also a Kennesaw State signee, was sidelined throughout the regular season with a severely pulled left quad injury. He was healthy enough to finally compete in the Region 7-4A meet, starting what turned out to be a whirlwind finish to his high school career.

“I worked hard over the summer before my senior year and expected to win state after finishing second last year,” Bridges said. “I didn’t want to jinx myself by being overconfident, but that’s the goal I set for myself.”

At a fall indoor meet at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, La., Bridges suffered the quad injury in a 55-meter sprint. Looking back, Bridges believes if he had pulled up in the race he might have “saved” the leg and been able to compete his entire senior season.

“But pulling up is something I don’t like to do,” he said.

Once healthy, Bridges made up for lost time.

The 5-foot-10-inch, 137-pound Bridges, who finished second to teammate Nate Woodason in the pole vault at the 2008 Class 4A state meet, started his comeback in April by winning the Region 7-4A title at 13 feet, 6 inches.

In Commerce, Bridges culminated his high school career with a state title vault of 14 feet in the finals, beating his nearest competitor, Travis Simmons of Jones County, by 14 inches. It was no contest and gave Northwest its third state pole vault title in four years. Woodason got the other two.

“A couple of days before state I could run without my leg hurting,” Bridges said. “I had been hurting so bad I was concerned about my scholarship (at Kennesaw State). I’m not a doctor, but I knew I just couldn’t run or get anywhere near to full speed. In fact, I thought I might not ever run like I did before.”

Bridges believes the weight he expects to add at Kennesaw — he wants to eventually compete at 155 to 160 pounds — that he possesses the ability to clear 16 feet in college.

“That’s me dreaming right there, but we’ll see,” he said. “Hopefully, I won’t get hurt again. I’m going to do all I can to reach that goal.”

As for Meyer, he’s leaned heavily toward a promising cycling career while competition in cross country and one year of track have simply been sidelights.

He finished “50-something” at the state cross country meet and his expectations running the mile as a senior were low.

“That’s what made it special,” Meyer said. “I had zero expectations. I was just going out to have some fun. But it got better as we went along and turned out pretty nice. I actually went into the season not wanting to run the mile, but coach (Richard) Taylor, our distance coach, realized I might do better in the mile than the 800. I definitely have to hand it to coach Taylor. He did a great job with me in the mile.”

On the opening day at the region meet at Dalton High, Meyer qualified for state by winning the 1,600-meter run in 4 minutes, 32 seconds.

Then, on the first day of the state meet, Meyer put 10 points into the Bruins’ coffers by edging McIntosh’s Vince Brown for the mile championship. Meyer ran a 4:27.21 to Brown’s 4:27.30.

McIntosh went on to finish third and Northwest was seventh in the team standings.

“I was worried going into the region because I had just come back from spring break in Panama City and figured I had lost some conditioning, but knew I had it in me to win region.”

Strangely enough, the region title did little to boost Meyer’s confidence for the state meet.

“I had the fifth- or sixth-best time going to state,” he said. “I didn’t think I had a chance. To say I was surprised to win is a big understatement.”

The 18-year-old Meyer said he “was hurting bad” the entire final lap of the race, especially the last 200 meters.

“I was trying hard to just hang on the kid’s heels and try to get second place,” Meyer said. “Around 50 meters I started to pass him and figured he didn’t have much left either. Once I passed him, I thought I had it won. I also thought it was too good to be true. Thinking back, if I had really trained for the mile and been running it throughout high school, I could have quite a few state championships and maybe even some school records.”

Now, Meyer turns his focus back to cycling. In September, he begins a string of races in Boston, Lexington, Ky., Canada, Oregon and Chicago in his continuing bid to become a professional cyclist and eventually attempt to compete in the Tour de France.

“I’m going to put college off for a couple of years and see what I can do in cycling,” he said.

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