College Track and Field: Mims, Taylor help South Plains College earn NJCAA title

Though the names and faces change, Chris Beene relays the same message annually to athletes who compete for South Plains College’s track and field program in Levelland.

Last weekend in Hutchinson, Kan., a pair of Odessa High School graduates — freshmen Chasity Mims and Kirsten Taylor — earned their share of what is becoming quite a tradition.

Mims and Taylor both scored points as the Lady Texans won their third consecutive title in the NJCAA Outdoor National Track and Field Championships.

“We talked about that our first meeting,” said Beene, in his seventh consecutive year as South Plains College’s head coach in track and field along with cross country. “We bring in new groups every year, and we’re working toward that same goal.”

Mims finished second in the women’s high jump by equaling her season-best effort of 5 feet, 5 inches.

Taylor was eighth in the 1,500 meters with a personal-best time of 5 minutes, 2.60 seconds. It closed out a year full of competition for Taylor, who also ran for South Plains College’s national cross country runner-up and its squad that tied for the team title in the NJCAA Half-Marathon.

“I like how much tougher it was,” Taylor said. “I liked the competition. You actually have to work. During the cross country season, I figured that out.”

At the NJCAA Cross Country Championships last fall, Taylor individually finished 43rd in the field of 286 runners.

A week later she was 32nd of 88 while running the NJCAA Half-Marathon, which was her first competition at the distance.

Taylor also ran the 400-meter leg in March on the South Plains College team that was runner-up in the distance medley at the NJCAA Indoor Championships before her eighth-place finish Saturday in the 1,500.

“She has had a long year,” Beene said. “She’s so tough and she’s worked very hard for us and it paid off. The 1,500 at the junior college level, especially on the women’s side, is so tough. Even just being in the top eight says a lot.”

Mims was the definition of pleasant surprise for Beene and the Lady Texans.

After her fourth-place finish last year for Odessa High at the Region I-5A Champions, it didn’t look like Mims would continue and originally planned on playing basketball at Odessa College.

But she changed her mind over the summer and decided to walk on at South Plains College to continue in the high jump.

Mims got the job done with a third-place finish in March at the NJCAA Indoors and then improved on that with her second-place finish Saturday at the NJCAA Outdoors with her effort of 5-5.

“I would’ve been more satisfied if I got that 5-7 on my second or third jump that I barely missed,” Mims said. “But second was good enough. The meet before nationals I didn’t jump very good, so for me to come out and jump like I know how was pretty satisfying to me.”

Mims said she enjoyed the experience of her freshman season, including the interaction of teammates from Taylor and Midland Lee graduate Chante’sean White — the national runner-up in the women’s 400 — to those who hailed from across the country or even Sweden, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago.

The runner-up finish in the high jump earned Mims second-team NJCAA All-America honors.

“She just barely kind of qualified for Indoors and then goes to the national meet and scores,” Beene said. “You turn around to the outdoor season and she wasn’t jumping as well early, and then you go to the national meet and she goes out and gets second. She really competes well. If it’s a big meet, if it matters, she steps up.”

It was that kind of year for both Mims and Taylor during their freshman season at South Plains College.