DCL Championships 9 Feb. 2008

We had a team dinner at our house on Friday night – the sight of all the shoes at the front entrance was too much fun to resist. I took a photo of it.


DCL Championships

Full results can be found at:

http://www.coolrunning.com/results/08/ma/Feb9_DualCo_set1.shtml

PHOTO links below.

An exciting, hard fought meet on both sides, with a lot of surprises. In the end the NS boys took second by one point to AB 84-83. The girls took second to LS 126, the NS score was 97.5.

There was high drama again, as usual. I may as well put it up front, before getting to the results. Steven M. doubled Kelsey Karys in the 1-mile and the 2-mile. Coaches will frequently shuffle lineups in big meets to try to maximize points. Evidently there’s a rule that an athlete can run at most one race, one relay, and one field event, in the DCL League Championship meet. Sounds pretty arcane, no? But it’s a rule. What’s even more confusing is that it seems to apply only to the indoor season, and not the outdoor. That’s pretty tough to remember – like a trick question on an exam.

In any case – as the story was recounted, and it seems correct – one or both of the LS coaches saw the entries and noticed that Kelsey was entered in both the mile and 2-mile. They alerted the meet officials to this fact and reminded them of the “DCL-League-Indoor-Championship-meet – can’t-double-in-a-race (on odd numbered Saturdays in February) rule”. After Kelsey ran (and won, I’m calling it a win, OK? You got a problem with that, see me outside) the two mile, the announcer called the NS coach over to the scorer’s table. Lots of head shaking, ringing of hands, paper being waved around, coaches talking with officials. I couldn’t tell precisely what was going on, but ultimately she was disqualified from both the 1 mile and the 2-mile, where she had taken second and first, respectively.

So, if you think this was drama enough. The boys meet was extraordinarily tight, with leads changing between AB, NS and LS throughout. The boys 4x200 meter relay was a thriller, with NS narrowly missing AB. Both teams ran extraordinary times – the NS time of 1:33.41 is a new school record eclipsing the old one of 1:35.09, set in 2002. Congratulations to James, Georgiy, Kwame and Gerald!

More twists and turns – the announcer called up the AB coach, Brian, to the scorer’s table after the 4x200 meter relay. Evidently one of the officials wanted to disqualify the 4x200m relay team from AB because they wore speed suits – note that the speed suits were identical, except perhaps for that extra piece of fuzz on Stanley Ye’s uniform. I could only see a lot of shaking of heads, waving of hands, consulting of rule books etc from the sidelines. It didn’t look pretty.

This all transpired near the end of the meet. I was walking back to the stands where the NS contingent was lingering, and passed Brian. I asked him what happened, and he told me that the AB team had not been DQ’ed after all (a relief to me, I’m not fond of that uniform rule). At that moment, the overall team score was flashed on the board, showing that AB won by one point. I gave Brian a big hug, and then he told me that he’d just found out that his sister was in intensive care with double pneumonia and an elevated white blood cell count. That knocked the wind out of my sails and put some perspective on the whole meet. The business about DQ’es, not doubling two races, uniforms, and all that seemed petty, and my only thought was one of gratitude that I could be in a place where healthy kids could run and compete, and their proud parents could watch them.

The meet would’ve been more enjoyable without the soap opera, but my prayers go out to Brian and his family.

On to some results:

In the hurdles, Azeezah Gray ran a 9:39 to take second in her heat. Azeezah is coming off of a nasty spill in the hurdles from last week, and clipped one in the finals, slowing her way down. She’s qualified for the States already, so look for her next week. Rachel Rubinstein ran a 10.42 and Mary-Kate Cronin ran a 10.23, which I think is a season best for her.

In the boys hurdles, Yong Cho won his heat in 7.80, and came back to take second in the finals, running a 7.78. LS’es Bryant Wang ran an amazing 7.61, which is around top 2 or 3 in the state this year.

We had three girls all advance to the finals in the 55m dash – Katie Sandson, Pebbles Banks, and Candace Bailey!! They took 2, 3 and 8th in the finals. Candace’s times are coming down. She ran a 7.45 in the finals, getting closer to her marks from last year.

In the boys dash, both James Huth and Kwame Francis-John advanced to the finals, and took 5-6 respectively in 6.81 and 6.82. There was one one-hundredth separating 4-5-6th place. James is now qualified for States in the 55m dash (first time running in spikes at Reggie this season).

The mile – we had Kelsey take 2nd (before the DQ) in 5:13-ish, Juliet Ryan-Davis 3rd (now 2nd) in 5:14.33, and Kathy O’Keefe taking 5th (now 4th) in 5:22.5 – great time for Kathy – we have more top-notch milers than we know what to do with.

On the boys mile, John Beck ran a 4:36 to take 3rd, Yuji Wakimoto ran 4:39.9, looking very smooth and in control. Ben Finch ran a 4:45.

In the boys 300, Gerald Arneaud took first, reversing his loss to Boston Latin’s Peter Rice, running a wicked fast 36.09. We also had a big PR from Georgiy Kupovykh, who ran 37.56.

Diana Braver, Julia Frieze and Kyle Remy ran 3-4-6 in the 600. Kyle ran a great 1:40, winning one of the unseeded heats. In the boys 600, Tal Inbar ran an amazing 1:26.9 to take third – he’s really improving by leaps and bounds. Will Cha took 5th to add points on the board.

In the 1000, Bridget Dahlberg dueled with LS’es Emily Mepham throughout the race. In the end, Emily put on a wicked finishing kick that was hard to answer. Bridget’s time was very fast – 2:59.02.

The boys 1000m had a dramatic finish- WA’s Marc Boutin and AB’s Jack Benjamin were dueling it out, when Alec Linden from LS came out of nowhere with a wicked finishing kick to win. Bodies littered the track at the end of that one. Alex Long snuck in behind the carnage to take 4th in 2:43.2.


In the girls’ shot, big points from Liz Jeyaraj, who is undefeated in DCL competition – taking first, and Nalis Mbianda taking 3rd with throws of 34-02 and 31-04.

The boys 2-mile was full of excitement, with Andrew Wortham again dueling with Jon Gault – exchanging the lead many times. Andrew took 2nd in 9:52.8 – great effort, and I think this is a PR for Andrew.

In the girls’ 2-mile, Melanie Fineman and Kelsey Karys ran together for much of the race. Kelsey ended up moving ahead of Melanie. Kelsey won it in 11:07, Melanie ran an 11:30.78 to take second. Sara Chari took 7th in 11:49.4, and Sonya Freeman hit another huge PR, running 11:52.2. Sonya was ecstatic with her time. She’d been chasing the 12:00 barrier since Freshman year and now is demolishing it.

Of course, you’ve heard the story about the DQ of Kelsey above. This resulted in Melanie getting the 1st place trophy. In a touching moment, Melanie tried to give the trophy to Kelsey, who wouldn’t have any of it. When it looked like AB might’ve been DQ’ed in the boys 4x2, our runners made a pact that they’d give AB the trophy if they had been DQ’ed (which didn’t materialize, fortunately). I think the kids sometimes have better sensibilities than adults (well, officials, anyway). You parents really deserve a big pat on the back for raising your kids so well!

Sarah Marquis took 3rd in the long jump 15’-9”. Yong Cho also scored in the long jump, taking 5th. Chris Kim took 3rd in the shot – adding big points. We’re hoping Chris decides to come to outdoor season, rather than lacrosse. We need to figure out how to make the javelin more pugilistic for Chris’ tastes, however.

In the girls’ high jump we got 3rd 5th and 5th from the Ellis sisters, Elizabeth and Kathryn and Diana Braver, who had to zip off to run the 600 and get back to the jump – always a tough double.

The boys 4x800m relay came through bigtime for us, winning in 8:31.6 – Sasha, John Beck, Yuji and Will Cha all doubled back for this.

The girls 4x800m relay was a tight race, dueling again with LS. This is a bit like banging your head against a wall. We have one of the most outstanding distance teams in the Northeast, and we happen to be in the same league as another team that has one of the most outstanding distance squads in the Northeast. So, we run against them in dual meets, league meets, Class meets, and all-States.

Juliet Ryan-Davis ran a great leadoff leg, splitting a 2:21.4. Diana Braver and Julia Frieze ran out in front, which is tough. They wanted to give Bridget a good lead for the anchor, and did that, but it wasn’t enough – Emily Mepham closed in the anchor for an LS win. The time of 9:34.6 is one of the best times in the states, ranking up there with the other marks set by Newton South and LS. Jeeze. To give you an idea how close it was, the LS time was 9:30.7. The next fastest team, Acton Boxborough, ran a 10:12. All the other teams were lapped in this relay.

In the girls 4x400, we had the youngest team competing, by far, with three freshmen, Madeline Frieze and Andrea Braver, Kathy O’Keefe, and sophomore Kyle Remy. They ran a 4:28, which is really impressive, and we’re looking for big things from them.

The boys 4x400 gave a chance for guys who don’t normally run this to compete, so we had Ben Finch, Emerson Shui, Tal Inbar and John Mitkevicius running to take 4th.

In the girls’ 4x200, with Pebbles Banks to Sarah Marquis to Elizabeth Ellis to Azeezah Gray, we had a bit of a scare. Sarah couldn’t quite figure out the exchange zone markers (sound familiar?), so I had to run over and show her where to stand before a fast closing Pebbles got to her.

And, I already told you about the boys 4x2 – there was one touchy handoff, but the guys got it around for a new school record. On that, upbeat note, I think I’ll end. I have to say that the emotion of the whole meet was draining. The track team is truly blessed with some wonderful kids, and I’ll just reiterate a great thanks to all you parents who do such a wonderful job!