For the girls, it was a back-and-forth match early between Maclay, Bainbridge and Jacksonville Episcopal. Bainbridge came out the slight winner after the Marauders and Eagles held some of their distance runners out of later events in order to conserve energy for later in the season.
The Maclay girls' 4x800 team of Katy Swain, Shelby Salimone, Alicia Fenley and Emily Ness set a meet record with a time of 9:46, breaking the record by eight seconds.
"Well, we are happy with our opening," Maclay coach Gary Droze said. "The 4x800, especially for our girls, is kind of our signature event. They got the win and I was happy they went after the meet record. I thought it was attainable, but I left it up to them; they could either challenge it or back off, and they went for it. It was fun to watch."
Swain, a senior, would later win the 1,600 meters with a time of 5:20 while Fenley and Salimone finished third and fourth, respectively.
"My splits were really good," Swain described. "I'm excited. I had been going out too fast and this time I went out a little slower and was able to use that later."
Ness also won the intermediate hurdles after finishing third in the 110 meters hurdles.
"I felt strong," Ness said. "I'm happy with the 110m because I wasn't expecting to place that high."
Freshman Sharzay Thomas of Godby won the long jump and garnered third in the 100 meters.
"She's a freshman, and this is her first year running track," Godby girls' coach Chervon Screen said. "She has a lot of promise. I was really proud of her."
On the boys' side, Godby made everyone take notice that it will be challenging for a state championship. The Cougars scored 129 points for first place with Bainbridge (97 points) finishing seconds and Rickards (78 points) finishing third.
"Looking at our team this year, we were pretty confident we had a team that could win state," state champion Joe Franklin said. "Now we can see we're pretty much up there where we want to be."
Franklin finished first in the 1,600 meters with a time of 4:32 while Leon's Robert Beasley finished third in 4:35. Franklin would later win the 800 meters with a time of 1:53 and ran the third leg on the 4x400 team which also finished first.
Godby also used the strength of its field team, highlighted by wins in the high jump for Willie Downs and in the long jump by Lavorrie Johnson to boost its state profile.
In the boys' 110 hurdles, powerhouse Bainbridge finished 1-2 behind Bruce James and Leon Booker with Max Lang of Maclay finishing in third with a personal best. Lang also won the pole vault and scored points in the intermediate hurdles.
"I felt really good today," Lang said after his first event. "That was actually a personal best for me and it was the first meet of the season. I felt like I did really well and I scored points which was nice because I do all my stuff just for the team."
Also performing well in boys' events was third-place Rickards. The Raiders finished second, ahead of Godby, in the 4x100 with a time of 42.17. Darius Jones won the 300 intermediate hurdles in a time of 39.72 and Greg Harris and Jajuan Harley finished 2-3 in the 100 meters.
Anthony Riley of Bainbridge was named outstanding performer of the meet after winning the 100 and 200 meters, finishing fourth in the triple-jump and competing on the winning 4x100 team.