RISON - Winning at state track meets comes natural for members of the Rison Lady Wildcats' state championship 4x200 relay team.
The Lady 'Cats dominated in the event as they won by nearly 3 seconds over second-place finisher Yellville-Summit at last week's Class 2A State Track Meeting at Quitman.
Rison also came within a half step of winning a state title in the 4x100 relay had Fordyce not gotten the Lady Wildcats right at the finish line to edge them out by 1/10th of a second.
Three of those Lady Wildcats on the relay team - Shermyah Bracey, La'Drea Hamilton and Brianna Ferrell - are legacy student athletes whose parents and relatives also excelled at track.
Meanwhile, the fourth member of the relay team, Destiny Lea, is the daughter of Sean Lea and Laketa Broughton, who both played basketball for Kingsland High School, which did not have a track program.
Shermyah Bracey's father, Shermar Bracey, was a standout football player and track athlete at Rison, winning state championships in both the 100 and 200 meters in 2001. After helping guide the Wildcats to the 2000 Class 2A state championship with a win over Coach Gus Malzahn and the Shiloh Christian Saints, Bracey played college football at Arkansas State University before playing professionally in the Canadian Football League.
Shermyah's mother, Essence Brandon, was a standout track athlete as well, winning state championships in both the shot put and discus in 2002 as well as earning high point honors at the district track meet that same. She also won in the discus at the Meet of Champions for all high school classifications in that same year.
Brianna Ferrell's father, Bill Ferrell, was an All-State athlete in football, basketball and track at Bearden High School, earning a football scholarship to play for the University of Arkansas at Monticello.
Brianna's mother, Laytona Johnson, a Rison graduate, was All-District in track for f...
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