While Battlefield earned the most headlines this spring by qualifying three teams for the states when Brentsville District and Stonewall Jackson sent none, individual athletic superstars from BDHS and SJHS made up for that deficiency this weekend by bringing home the gold.

Seniors Danyelle Kent-Robinson of Brentsville and Damien Thigpen of Stonewall captured first place titles again this weekend during the state finals for outdoor track.

Kent-Robinson overcame a busted foot to leap 5-feet, 4-inches in the Group AA high jump at Harrisonburg High School, earning her the top spot in an event she had not won at states since her freshman year in 2006.

Though Brookville's Telisha Watts cleared the same mark, Kent-Robinson won the event via tie-breaker. The 5-foot-4 figure has been the magic number for the Brentsville senior during her tenure at Brentsville. Her first-year win came on a jump the same height. But when she missed the mark by one inch last year, Christina Fenske of Stuart Draft captured the gold by leaping 5-feet, 4-inches.

Kent-Robinson has won a gold in one event in the three years she has competed at states (she sat out in 2007). Last year, despite finishing second in the high jump, she won the 100 meter hurdles by 0.15 seconds over Schavon Hinds of Millbrook. She also brought in a silver for the 300 meter hurdles with a time of 45.96 that year.

Not to be outdone, Stonewall's Damien Thigpen dominated the Group AAA meet in Newport News by winning the 300 meter hurdles for the third year in a row and placing top-five finishes in the 100 and 200 meter dashes.

Thigpen recorded a personal best time of 37.02 seconds in the 300 over the weekend, scoring a decisive 1.27-second win over Reynaldo Radlin of North Stafford. The Stonewall senior improved on his 2008 showing of 37.62, which was actually slower than his 37.50 mark in 2007.

Since his freshman year, Thigpen has always reached states in at least one outdoor track event. Back in 2006, he posted an 11th place, 39.85 score in the 300 and took 14th in the 200.

Thigpen could have pulled off a near-impossible three-peat this year as he won preliminary heats in the 100 and 200 meter dashes. Had he ran equal to his original time in each event, he would have done it too, but he fell behind by just a hair each time, coming in fifth in the final round of the 100 and third in the 200.