Sunday, February 23, 2014

Massachusetts All State Meet at Reggie Lewis, 22 Feb.

The All State Meet was held yesterday at the Reggie Lewis track.
Click here for MileSplit results and coverage.

The big news is Ryan Kim winning the shot put in 58' - 2" to be All State Champion. His nearest competitor was at 55' - 6 1/2". I look forward to watching Ryan at outdoor meets going for 60'.

Newton South had three other competitors:
Charlotte Huth ran the 55 meters in 7.59 for 5th in her heat.
Clare Martin ran 5:22.73 in the mile.
Lucrecia Aguilar ran 5:25.20 in the mile.

Monday, February 17, 2014

Division 1 state meet at Reggie Lewis, 17 Feb. 2014

Click here for full results (Milesplit) and other meet info
Click here for relay photos by Dave Fineman

report from Steven for girls team:

9th    19 points      (out of 30 teams entered)

State meet scoring is:  10, 8, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1

As a coach I felt very satisfied with our team effort.  Every athlete and all three relays all competed at or near their best.  This is a group that we have been able to count on and it showed today.  I am happy with a top 10 finish and we will continue to grow from there.  

I am also pleased to advance three girls to All State as Lucrecia, Clare and Charlotte have all made it All State as individuals for the first time.

Our highlight of the day was a 2nd and 4th place finish in the mile with two season bests.
Lucrecia Aguilar has chopped off 10 seconds in the mile this season and this was her biggest race with a negative split PR of over 6 seconds in 5:12.21.  Clare Martin had a great race just behind her in a season best of 5:17.19.  Both girls followed the race plan exactly as they were patient early and focused late in the race.  I had told them prior to the meet that with great races they could both finish in the top 4 and make it on to All State.  This race is what we had hoped for in the fullest.

We also scored two girls in the 55 dash final as Charlotte Huth took 7th and Lizzie Walkes took 8th in 7.66.  Having two girls make the Division state final in the dash is a big achievement.  Charlotte's time of 7.61 is good enough to advance to the All State on time.

Both Alekhya Chaparala and Matia Whitting set big season bests in the 1000.  Alekhya ran a 4 second season best to take 13th in 3:13.18 and Matia came off of illness to run a PR of 3 seconds to place 15th in 3:15.58.

Rebecca Grusby went home sick on Friday and was ill through the weekend.  She ran a very gutsy effort in the two mile to place 8th in 11:37.36.  I could tell that this race was not easy as she was not 100%, but she gave a great effort.

Esther Cho has had a great season and placed 19th in the 55 Hurdles in 9.92. She worked most of the season to get under 10 seconds and once she did that she has been under every race this month.

Our 4 x 200 ran a super race to win their heat.  Liza Hochberg split under 26.8 to lead off and Katherine Cullen, Yuriko Fukumura and Allie Arruda all ran at their highest level to take 15th in 1:53.17.   This group has grown so much that they are now running faster than we ran early in the year with Charlotte and Lizzie W. on the team.  I work hard to get our kids to be able to work at any position on our relay teams and this group has really gotten the job done in the 4 x 200.

Our 4 x 400 took 9th place in 4:11.79.  That is a very fast time for a 9th place finish and the girls all ran very solid races as we went from Charlotte Huth at lead off and then Lucrecia Aguilar, Lizzie Fineman and Lizzie Walkes.  Our girls just missed qualifying for All State by one place, but this was still a stellar group running a very good race. Each girl really fought for position in a very tough heat.


Alekhya had run so well in the 4 x 800 that she earned the anchor spot on our 4 x 800.  Our other three girls have really grown this season to allow us to score in this event at this level.   I led off with Rachel Boisclair who set a PR of 2:26.4 and she put us in the top 4 on the first leg.  Sonya Nair and Katie Summers did a great job keeping us in scoring position.  Alekhya had her 2nd great effort of the day and we scored 7th place to earn state meet medals with a team season best time of 10:07.33.  I was thrilled watching our girls execute each leg so well in this relay.  This was a huge effort for this team.

Monday, February 3, 2014