JACKSONVILLE — George Jenkins senior Chelsi Williams became the most decorated track athlete in Polk County history as she won three more gold medals to give her 11 overall, but the weather prevented her from perhaps an even dozen and potentially cost the Eagles the state title.

Williams easily won three events on Saturday at the 2025 FHSAA Class 4A Girls Track and Field Championships at Hodges Stadium, but she dropped out of the 400 hurdles, which was just about to start as the 400 hurdles were finishing.

Severe weather on Friday forced the Class 3A meet to be completed on Saturday, and event officials had to condense the start time for the 4A meets.

That meant the running events would start immediately after the 1A and 3A meets were completed, instead of waiting until later when most of the field events would be complete.

For Williams, that meant she competed in the 100-meter hurdles just as the long jump was about to start. She won the 100 hurdles in 13.38 seconds, winning by more than half a second over Sickles’ Nia Armstrong (13.91).

It was her second-fastest time of her career, and she ran it in a slight headwind.

Williams then won the long jump with a mark of 20 feet, three inches. She tied her second-best mark.

In the triple jump, her first time of 40-3.25 was good enough to win, but she then jumped 41.0.5 on her second attempt, which was her third-best mark of her career.

“I’m very satisfied,” Williams said. “I think I did pretty good today.”

Williams said she wasn’t disappointed about not running the 400 because it’s an event she won’t run in college.

“If I ran the 400 (hurdles) like I was supposed to, I wouldn’t have been able to have done what I did in the triple jump because I was going to be dead (tired),” Williams said. “Usually, the 400 hurdles is the last thing I do, so I give it my all.”

Williams’ 11 gold medals overall, which includes two as an eighth-grader at McKeel, surpasses Lake Wales’ Octavious Freeman’s 10 gold medals.

Freeman, however, maintains a 10-9 advantage in medals won from nine through 12.

“You can’t beat that,” Williams said. “I didn’t know if I was going to win the 400 hurdles. It would have been a fight to the death.”

George Jenkins coach Curtis Williams acknowledged when they decided to take a false start in the 400 hurdles that it likely was going to cost Jenkins a state-runner-up finish.

“I did feel bad about that,” she said.

As it turned out, the decision to speed up the meet before inclement weather came proved to be a good decision.

With the meet nearly over, lightning and rain forced the meet to be suspended with one girls event, the high jump, not completed.

At that point, Spruce Creek led the girls team competition with 43.5 points, St. Thomas Aquinas was second with 43 points, and George Jenkins was third with 41 points.

Spruce Creek’s Mikayal Palmer eventually took third in the high jump when the meet resumed to give Spruce Creek six more points and 49.5 total.

Had Chelsi won the 400 hurdles, the Eagles would have gained 10 points with her win, but eighth-place finisher Tori Gibson would have dropped to ninth, giving the Eagles a net gain of nine points and a team total of 50 points, a half point more than Spruce Creek.

The George Jenkins girls also got points from Violet Smith, who was fourth in the discus with a 129-11, just shy of a personal record, and Taylor Gibson, who was fourth in the javelin with a personal-record 130-06.

Winter Haven’s Celiscar win gold; Murray bursts to silver

Winter Haven junior Olivia Celiscar put on a show in front of her brother, two-time boys basketball county player of the year Isaac Celiscar, who was at the meet after finishing his freshman year of classes at Yale on Tuesday.

“He told me I better win,” she said.

Olivia, who was only slightly disappointed with her performance, won the shot put and set a personal record of 42-02.75.

Her third goal was to reach 43 feet, although in the end, she agreed that two out of three wasn’t bad.

As for junior Desirae Murray, the Winter Haven sprinter stunned the field in the 100. Murray was seeded 16th out of 18 runners and ran in the first heat.

In a photo finish, Murray won the heat in 11.954 to edge out Oakleaf’s Rayna Lawson’s 11.956.

Murray and Lawson ended up second and third overall as the only runner from the “fast” heat to beat them was Largo’s Laiana McClinton, the favorite, who ran 11.75.

Winter Haven also took fourth in the girls 4×100, and Shaia Gallishaw was eighth in the long jump (17-10.75).

More Class 4A medalists from Polk

Haines City’s Isaiah Deyant took third in the long jump (22-10) and fourth in the triple jump (46-04).

George Jenkins finished seventh in boys 4×800.

Haines City’s Calonnie Holmes was fifth in the girls javelin (125-10).

1A: Searight top boys performer; LCS’s Wilkinson top girls performer;

McLaughlin’s Trevon Searight won two medals, the first medals won by McLaughlin at the state track meet, to finish as the top boys performer in the Class 1A state meet.

Searight ran 10.88 to finish third in the 100. He then ran 21.54 to finish third in the boys 200.

Victory Christian’s Avante Etheridge finished fourth (48-10.25) in the shot put. Andrew Morrison was seventh in the 110 hurdles (15.36), and AJ Cunningham was eighth in the 400 hurdles (58.12).

Lakeland Christian’s Larry Glenn Jr., Aiden Tucker, John Workman, and Paulos Kicklighter broke the school record by running 8:20 to finish sixth in the 4×800.

Lakeland Christian freshman Emma Wilkinson was the top girls athlete from Polk County in the Class 1A meet.

Wilkinson finished third in the 3,200 with a time of 11:08.57, which was about five seconds off her PR from last year when she finished fourth at the state meet in 11:03.10. Wilkinson then ran a PR of 5:13.13 and finished fourth in the 1,600.

Victory Christian’s Sydney Kratky, Bianca Barroso, Jordyn Williams, and Addie Lemmond finished third in the 4×400, dropping under four minutes to finish in 3:59.54.

It’s the fastest time of the year for a Polk County team. Earlier in the day, they finished sixth in the 4×100 in 49.35.

Medalists from 3A and 2A

Lake Wales’ Dackjerlin Senior finished sixth (2:15.47) in the girls 800, and Auburndale’s Dejon Barber finished seventh ( 44-08) in the boys triple jump. The Lake Wales girls also finished eighth in the 4×400 in 4:02.24.

The Tenoroc boys finished sixth in the 4×100 in 42.19.

Frostproof’s Berry, Byrd win Para State gold

Mason Berry won three events at the Para State Championships. He took the wheelchair javelin (36-10), wheelchair 100 (19.02), and the wheelchair.

Frostproof’s Abigail Byrd won the ambulatory shot put (18-06.5) and Savannah Rhodes took second (16-11.5). In the girls ambulatory javelin, Rhodes finished second (51-01) and Byrd finished third (41-11). Rhodes and Byrd also finished second (19.15) and third (20.78), respectively, in the ambulatory 100.