By Ryan Bisesi

rbisesi@salisburypost.com
GRANITE QUARRY — The North Piedmont Conference will remember East Rowan’s boys as champions.
It never knew them as anything else.
The Mustangs won their fourth straight NPC crown with Tuesday’s edition, featuring six first-place awards. East won handily on its home track in its last grace with the league before joining the SPC next year.
“We feel pretty good about what we were able to do today,” said East Rowan senior Graham Lyerly. “It was great to leave here with that performance.”
The Mustangs finished with 201.5 points after setting a 200-point goal before the meet. Despite distance stud Conor Honeycutt being injured, and a disqualification in the 4×100 relay, the Mustangs took the title by almost 70 points. East has won every meet this season heading into the regional.
“We get so many points because of our depth,” East coach Rick Roseman said. “Every event we have several kids that can score. We got a ton of third and fourth places. Athlete-wise we’ve got a special team.”
East’s Chase Brown won the high jump as well as the 110 hurdles as the only Mustang to win two events. Brown jumped 6 feet, 2 inches in the high jump and finished the 110 in 16 seconds flat. East’s Tad Bowers and Jordan Phillips finished second and third as East gained 24 points in the event.
The Mustangs ruled the jumping events with Donte Means and Calvin Edwards finishing 1-2 in the triple jump and Edwards edging West Rowan’s Raykwon Torrence in the long jump. Marshall Shank won the pole vault with a 13-foot leap.
“It was great we were able to meet our goal,” Lyerly said. “All that without points in the 4×100.”
Lyerly won the 800 in 2:04 and partook in the first-place 4×800 relay (Deepan Patel, Justin Allen, Josh Rowell, Lyerly) and second-place 4×400.
Carson’s Myquon Stout won field events MVP by taking the discus and shot put. Stout set a county meet record last week at the county championship with a 58-9 toss and threw 49 feet Tuesday. Stout made a 145-8 toss in the discus to beat out teammate Tre Williams.
West Rowan was runner up with 133 points. Carson (118) and Statesville (68.5) were third and fourth.
Carson’s Zachary Marchinko was the distance MVP as he won the 1600 and 3200. Carson’s Kyle Gillis was second in the 1600 and East’s Justin Allen and Cal Meyers rounded out the top three in the 3200. Honeycutt ran a 4:51 mile for third in the 1600.
West Rowan’s C.J. Ellis was the sprinting MVP. Ellis won the 100 and 200 runs. The Falcons won the 4×100 relay (Deondre White, Steven Kennedy, Daisean Reddick, Ellis).
Statesville’s Daryl Houpe won the 400 and Breon Borders won the 300 hurdles. The Greyhounds won the 4×200 relay.
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NOTE: The 3A Midwest region final will be Saturday, May 4 at Mt. Pleasant.