Still, Friday was a big day for the Carolina 3-A conference at the state track and field meet at Aggie Stadium.

Cardinal Gibbons, led by senior distance phenom Sarah Rapp, finished with 45 points and trailed winner Winterville South Central by only six in the girls' championship.

Chapel Hill received a solid effort including a 3,200-meter win from junior Mitch McLeod in the boys' championship, finishing with 32 points and in a two-way tie for fourth, 10 points behind champion Fayetteville Douglas Byrd. Burlington Williams was second by a point.

Byrd's Eric Winfrey was the boys' MVP and Concord Cox Mill's Tori Eliott took the honor on the girls' side.

South Central won on the strength of firsts in the high jump and triple jump from Danielle Butts, who ran legs on the victorious 4-by-100 and 4-by-200.

South Central and Gibbons piled up points in differing events.

"Our girls ran great and showed a lot of heart," said first-year Gibbons coach Nick Mangum, whose boys team had 16 points. "It was a very good day for us."

Rapp, the state's premier 3-A female distance runner who is headed for Virginia Tech in the fall, ran 11 minutes, 3.44 seconds in the 3,200, ahead the 11:30.01 of Chapel Hill's Tristan Van Ord. Rapp ran a 5:07.05 in the 1,600 for a five-second victory, and ran the final leg of the victorious 4-by-800 with teammates Samiiah Wilson, Megan Cuomo and Megan Kunkel.

"I don't usually have competition," Rapp said. "The 800 (an eighth-place finish) was a kick in the butt. My legs weren't feeling that good today. I wish I were faster in the 1,600, too."

Added Van Ord, "Sarah's an amazing runner, but I just can't run that fast. This was only the third time I'd run the 3,200 this season."

Kunkel was a double winner, running 2:17.74 for a close win in the 800.

"There was a lot of tough competition, but in the end it worked out," she said. West Brunswick's Kayla Padgett was a double winner in the shot and discus to deny the Triangle-area entries, breaking a 15-year-old state record with a 42 foot-7 inch throw in the shot put to top South Johnston's Whitney Williams, and beating Orange's Sherri Owens by 13 feet in the discus.

"I got my personal best (120-4) on my last throw," said Owens, a senior headed to Methodist University. "And finishing seventh in the shot, this is a really big day for me."

Said Williams, "Hopefully I can do as well as (Padgett) did last year."

The boys' title wasn't decided until the 4-by-400, with Chapel Hill not entered.

McLeod, a junior, ran 9:30:59 to nip Marvin Ridge's Chris Colo.

"My strategy was to stay on the shoulder of the leader unless it was too slow," McLeod said. "I'm not going to get out-kicked."

Gibbons' Tommy Schotzinger was second in the 1,600, 6.5 seconds behind Robinson's Braedon Koerwitz.

"I couldn't go for the win because he was way ahead," Schotzinger said.

"But I still had to give it my all."