BlueWhiteIllustrated.com - Price going for the gold

May 30, 2008

Sean Fitz
BlueWhiteIllustrated.com Recruiting Analyst

When future Penn State wide receiver A.J. Price gets in the blocks for the final time on Friday at Todd Stadium in Newport News, Va., for the VHSL Group AAA state track and field championships, it won't just be the final sporting event of his high school career, it will also be a chance to bring South Lakes High School its first track state championship in school history.

Price and his teammates have already made a bit of history in the last few weeks, winning the school's first district title in 21 years two weeks ago, and adding the school's first regional title ever last Saturday.

"I got first place in the 200 and the 400 and the long jump in districts and regionals," said Price. "We have states on Friday and Saturday. I'm just doing the 400, long jump and our relays. I can't do the 200 because we're only allowed to do three running events."

The Seahawks only have a few athletes competing this weekend, but they are holding out hope for an outside shot at a state title.

"I think we're going to do pretty well, we have the chance to surprise some people," he said. "I think people think that guys from Northern Virginia can't run sprints, but we're going to surprise some people."

Price is seeded fifth in the 400 this weekend, which will run on Friday at 6:45, with a time of 48.17 seconds. He is also the No. 5 seed in the long jump, where his qualifying leap was 23-7. Both relay teams that he will be in are also both seeded in the top ten.

All in all, it wasn't a bad season for someone who didn't join the track team until this spring. He has enjoyed it so much that he is considering doing track for the Nittany Lions.

"I've talked to coach Johnson, and he said after my first year that we would check and see where I was at academically," he said. "Then we could decide if I wanted to do both. After this season, I've seen that I can actaully do it, and that's one thing I've talked to my mom about. We're going to see what happens after the first year and go from there."

Johnson has made sure to stay in touch with Price throughout the track season.

"Coach Johnson calls me every other week, I've talked to him a bunch over the past few weeks," said Price. "He actually came down to watch the first day of our regionals last week. It was good to see him.

If there is a downfall to his run at state gold, it is that he has not had much of an opportunity to hit the weight room this spring. He is still weighing in at 175 pounds, and won't start lifting seriously until after this weekend.

"I've lifted a little bit, but track practice has been, hell, I guess you could say," remarked Price. "I've been mostly running. Once we figured out that we could actually be something for track, we all just as a team decided that we were going to work a lot harder in practice, so that has been taking up a lot of my time."

On Friday, Price will have the long jump at 3:00 and the 400 at 6:45. He will be running the 4x100-meter relay at 1:20 and the 4x400-meter relay at 3:50 on Saturday.

For meet results, visit VHSL.org.

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