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Get out of the way, Fortney's throwing
Fauquier High’s Kyle Fortney is a linebacker. He is trained to crush anyone who enters his area of the football field.
Fortunately it was still track and field season Friday.
Some relay runners walked off the track at Lannigan Field on the University of Virginia campus in Charlottesville and wandered into Fortney’s discus area during the Northwest Region track meet. They weren’t tackled for the transgression, nor were they hit by a disc. They did anger Fortney, though, which ended up an asset for the Fauquier junior.
Fortney aborted one of his throws mid-windup when those runners ventured into the discus sector. He reset, harnessed his anger, Hulk-style, and unleashed an incredible throw of 160 feet, 7 inches, a personal record by 10-3.
“I was just [ticked] off,” Fortney said. “They made me stop on my second windup and that just made me mad. That added on to the throw.”
Fortney threw in the low- to mid-140s the rest of the day, but that one toss over 160 vaulted him from a likely sixth-place finish to second. Woodbridge’s Isaiah Simmons won with a throw of 162-1, while Fauquier John Billings’ added a ninth-place finish (133-0) and Michael Sherbin took 22nd (111-1).
Anger wasn’t all that fueled Fortney’s impressive throw. He credited Fauquier High graduate Porter Watkins with helping fine-tune his technique.
Now a sophomore thrower at Georgetown, Watkins was the 2007 girls discus AAA state champion for Fauquier with a throw of 124-11. During the week leading up to Friday’s regional meet, she returned to Warrenton and spent some time with Fauquier’s throwers.
“She really stressed keeping this [left] arm in and keeping my weight to the back of the circle and getting a faster whip,” Fortney said. “I think the whip was really what got it [the disc] out there.”
Thanks to Fortney’s 160-7 throw, he now has to reassess his state aspirations...
See the Wednesday print edition of the Fauquier Times-Democrat for the complete story.
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