Canyon teammates Hannah Stuart (R) and Addyson Bristow (L) win the UIL 4A middle distance races at the state meet
UIL Track and Field State Championships
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UIL 4A girls 800m
Canyon sophomore Addyson Bristow was the 2023 runner-up in the UIL 4A girls 800m. She finished right behind her teammate Abree Winfrey. She entered this years state meet as the top seed from regionals with a time of 2:10.31.
Annabelle Williams (Sealy) took the early lead off the first turn as he came through the first 200m at 29.5 with Bristow closing on her trail. Bristow overcame Williams before hitting the crescent of the turn with Maggie Neal (Krum) pulling up behind her before crossing the 300m as Williams was still in the third position.
Bristow crossed the halfway point just under 1:03 and was being tracked by Neal who was only a stride behind all of the way through the 600m as Bristow clocked a 1:37 split.
Neal began to start her kick and pulled alongside of Bristow with 150m remaining, but Bristow immediately responded with a surge of her own to hold her off. After covering Neal's move, Bristow continued to power home in 2:10.61 to hold off the continued push from Neal who finished runner-up in 2:11.88.
Solid second lap finishes from Trista Etheridge (Mabank) earned her the bronze medal in 2:13.30, Nyomi Garcia (Robstown) for a time of 2:15.91, and Rika Witt (Huffman Hargrave) and her 2:14.98 fifth place finish.
Bristow, who had a 2:09.06 personal best run earlier in the year, runs her way into the Canyon upper-echelon at the 800m distance. She joins the most recent Canyon crew to win 800m state titles like Arin Rice in 2012 - 2:09.90, Kaitlin Rodriguez in 2014 - 2:09.27 (2:07.68 PB), Gabbi Davis in 2019 - 2:15.67, and most recently Abree Winfrey who won in 2021-2023 with a 2:10.72 best.
The UIL 4A girls 800m state title officially runs through Canyon, Texas as this is the fifth consecutive win for a runner from the school.
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UIL 4A girls 1600m
The girls 1,600m saw a pair of Canyon Eagles both returning back to the track to try to repeat as champions from other events earlier in the day. The event was also huge for team point earning potential as Canyon was again trying to defend their team championship.
Hannah Stuart (Canyon) had won the, 3200m earlier in the morning to set up her back-to-back wins in that event and was now facing the same situation here in the 1,600m.
Entering from regionals, her teammate Bristow was the most challenging competitor along with Cadence Patterson (Comal Canyon Lake) who was runner-up earlier in the 3,200m.
Through the first lap, it was Stuart the leader with Bristow a couple of strides back in third place and trailing Ann Claire Cop (Fredericksburg).
From that point on out through the 1K mark, the race morphed into a stride-for-stride race between Stuart, Patterson, and Bristow. The race and steps were so close that a collision from the strides of Patterson and Bristow caused Patterson to go down and made Bristow have to hurdle her to keep from hitting the track as well.
It appears as though Patterson ever-so-slightly moved too far over without clearance of the long striding Bristow and it resulted in the trippage.
From that point on out, only the two Canyon Lady Eagles were left to battle it out with the end result being a 1-2 finish with Stuart defending her 2023 title and Bristow adding another runner-up state meet finish to an upperclassman teammate in her career.
Both Stuart and Bristow are also top-five in the Canyon record book in the 1,600m as well. Stuart's personal best 4:54.06 is No. 3 all-time at Canyon and Bristow is No. 4 with her 4:56.29 on Thursday.
