One of the greatest athletes to run in Missouri capped off a stellar career at the MSHSAA Class 5 championships.
Zaya Akins added three state titles, winning the 100-, 200- and 400-meter dashes for Raytown South.
She finished her three-year career with 8 titles between Class 4 and Class 5 - the first year the Cardinals got bumped up into the state's largest classification.
The Cardinals had a total of 12 individual girls' titles before Akins' arrival in 2021 - delayed a year due to COVID-19 ending her first season before it began.
The only other athlete with more than two individual state titles for the Raytown South girls' program was Jade Nalls, who won the long jump (2008) and triple jump (2008, 2010) before going on to Texas Southern (Jade Nalls at Texas Southern).
Akins broke the Class 5 400-meter record at the state finals with a time of 54.74 in the prelims, besting the mark set by current Clemson athlete Courtney Williams of Nerinx Hall, who ran 54.87 in 2019.
In the finals, Akins broke her own record again and the overall state meet record, running 53.08.
The previous best mark, regardless of class, was from McCluer South-Berkely's Alishea Usery of 53.55 in 2007. Usery claimed 12 individual titles before running at Florida.
Akins currently holds the Class 4 and Class 5 state meet record in the 400-meter dash - running 53.41 last spring. She set the all-time state record of 52.83 at the Class 5 Sectional 4 meet the week before state.
The Kentucky signee won the 100, 200 and 400 as a sophomore and won the 100 and 400 last year - as a leg injury kept her from starting the 200 prelims.
She is the first runner to win three titles in a row in the 400-meter dash since St. Louis Sumner's Tianna Swinney won in 1992, 1993 and 1994. Swinney would run track and field at UCLA and her son, Jameson Williams, was a state champion hurdler and standout sprinter at Cardinal Ritter before becoming an NFL first-round draft pick of the Detroit Lions in 2022.
