Mathews High School junior Donovan Forrest earned gold and silver medals in last weekend’s VHSL Class 1 Track and Field State Championships, held on Friday and Saturday at the James Madison University Track & Field Complex in Harrisonburg.

MHS earned one other medal at the event, with the boys’ 4×800 meter relay team of Seth James, Andrew Greve, Gavin Dustin and Keith Taylor taking silver with a second-place finish, which was also a school record in the event.

Forrest received his gold medal in the 110m hurdles. After placing first in the preliminary round with a time of 15.23 seconds, he improved his time to 15.08 to win the state championship.

He also took the silver in the 100-meter dash. He placed seventh in the preliminaries with a time of 11.34 seconds and second in the finals with a time of 11.52. Ironically, his time in the preliminaries (while only good enough for seventh place) would have given him the gold in the finals. He also competed in the 300m hurdles (placing eighth) and long jump (placing 16th).

Dustin, James, Greve and Taylor placed second in the 800-meter relay with a time of 8:27.17, about 10 seconds off the winning time from Parry McCluer. The four boys also competed in the 4×400, placing fifth place in 3:37.75, just missing out on a second medal.

Taylor had a strong performance for the MHS boys, but missed out getting on the podium with a fifth-place finish in the long jump and sixth place in the triple jump.

Dustin and Greve also competed in the 800-meter run, with Dustin taking sixth and Greve finishing 11th. Chance Higginbotham and Jon Jenkins represented Mathews in the 3200-meter run. Higginbotham placed seventh while Jenkins finished in 19th place. Jordyn Cosby placed 15th in the discus.

MHS girls

For the Mathews girls, sophomore Nora Suthard placed fifth in the triple jump, ninth in both the 300-meter hurdles and long jump, 14th in the 200-meter dash and 18th in the 100-meter dash. Lorena Carballo finished 15th in the 3200-meter run.