SOUTHERN PINES-The Scotland girl’s track team could not have picked a worse time to be off their game than the conference meet.

The Scots garnered only five top finishes, and had to settle for a runner-up finish at the Southeastern Conference meet.

Host Pinecrest, who take first in eight events won the championship with 193 points compared the 161 that Scotland had.

Even though the girls did not win, Coach Shelly Barnes was still proud of the team’s performance.

“I'm disappointed for not winning, but many of the girls did have their personal best times or jumps and I saw some young girls on my team really perform well,” Barnes said. “I told my girls before going into the meet that as long as they gave me their very best effort,whatever that was, I would be proud of them regardless of how we finished. Some of them did that and some didn't.”

One good piece of news to come from the meet was that Ariel Gates, who had half of the top finishes, was named the SEC Player of the Year as voted on by the SEC coaches.

Gates finished first in the 200-meter dash and in the 300-meter hurdles,beating out Ceci Weibert of Pinecrest by almost four seconds in the hurdles.

Shantel Smith earned herself a first place finish in the long jump with a leap of 17-feet, 6-inches.

She beat out the Patriots Hannah Hensley, who finished with a pair of top finishes and two second-place finishes, by two inches.

Ariana Jones had Scotland’s only other top finish in solo races, winning the 100-meter hurdles.

Something that the Scots have thrived on this season, relay events, failed them as they earned a top finish in just one of the four relays.

The quartet of Aatianna Williams, Jones, Larcenia Easterling and Erin Cromartie, won the the 4x100-meter relay.

The team would finish second in one other (4x800-meter relay) before finishing fourth (4x400-meter relay) and fifth (4x200-meter relay) in the other two races.

“Pinecrest has a quality program and really they have been our only competition in this conference this year,” said Barnes. “We have run well at other meets and won, but I knew we were going to have to have 'personal best' in all of our events to be close for a chance to win and that did not happen for all the girls in all of our events.”

Scotland will compete in the regionals next Saturday, May 15, at West Johnston High School.