DCL Championships full report 21 May 2008

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Story by John Huth:
The team was pumped up for this meet like no others so far this season- this meant the most - the Dual County League T+F Championship for the boys and girls. Any first place winner got to hear their name booming over the loudspeaker, saying "and.... the two-thousand and eight Dual County League Champion in the [name of event here] is [name of winner here]...." Even sixth place finishers would know that their one point counted for the team, and the spectators all knew that - cheering on the competitors. With their eyes even beyond the DCL's, the coaches held back Candace Bailey (cyst removed on her back) and Bridget Dahlberg (getting some more healing time for her injury) for the D1 States, even though Bridget and Candace were sure to score points in the mile, long jump, 200m and a couple of relays. Cora was back and vaulting, Ross M. was back and long-jumping and pole vaulting.
LS was showcasing their new track, and had a huge crew of parents selling burgers, hot dogs, pizza and other items. LS is also the site of the D1 State Championships, which is sure to be a thriller. A weak cold front was blowing through, producing sporadic showers all afternoon, and the threat of lightning, which, fortunately, didn't materialize.

In the girls jav, there were some familiar faces from previous meets - Elyse Ogletree and Katrina Kroll from Wayland, and Courtney Boland from AB. NS'es Kayla was within a couple of feet of qualifying for the states, and Nalis was looking to place highly against the Wayland throwers. In a real show of "doing it for the team", Katrina was throwing with a bad ankle, and hobbled after each throw. In Kayla's first throw, she ran too fast down the runway, and threw off the wrong foot. I asked her "are you nervous?." She said, "yeah, really nervous..." So, I urged her to relax and concentrate. She pulled herself together and delivered on her next one, with 95'2" - a 5 foot PR, and enough to qualify for states - in fact, good enough to snag 5th place and 2 points. Her pre-season goal was to throw 93', and qualify for states. She was very pumped and full of smiles. Nalis threw 109'9" and had to hustle over to the finals in the shot put. Courtney's throws showed amazing form, and even though she was of slight build, she managed to throw a 115' toss, good for 2nd place. Many of the NS javelineers were impressed with her throwing form. I mentioned this, and she said, "well, it had better be good, I've worked with a private trainer for over six months..." I said "well, it shows...' Only Elyse Ogletree topped her - with not-as-good form, but a substantial 122'. Nalis' throw was good for third place, edging out Katrina's throw. So, that was good for eight points for NS.

While the throws were going on, the trials in the 100m dash were in progress. James qualified for the finals, handily, easing up in the last 10 meters. Both Katie and Pebbles won their heats, too, advancing to the finals.
Next up was the 1-mile run on the oval. The guys went out in a pack, with John Beck, Yuji Wakimoto and Ben Finch in the hunt. The lead went back and forth a number of times. In the end, AB's Dan Grant took it, in 4:29.72, followed by LS'es Jake Shoemaker and CC'es Phil Divino. Then, we had three NS'ers crossing the line - John Beck (4:34.4), Ben Finch (4:35.7 - a five second PR), and Yuji Wakimoto (4:38.9) for 4,5,6. Cliff Bargar ran a 4:48 for 9th - but his best race was in the now-named "your chance to shine meet" on Saturday.

In the girls 1 mile, we saw Andrea Keklak hang behind Kathy O'Keefe for the better part of three and a half laps. Kathy did gradually kick up the pace, but Andrea had her famous kick at the end to take first. Kathy in second, then AB's Kate Warwick in third, and Melanie Fineman in fourth (5:25.2) Kathy's time of 5:11.9 is another PR for her. The prospect of having four milers in the 4:50-5:10 range is looking interesting. In the 300m hurdles - Tal Inbar took first in his heat for 6th, and Ben Seifer took 5th - again those points add up. LS'es hurdle guru, Bryant Want took first. Kyle Remy snagged 6th in the girls 300m hurdles.

The boys 800 - wow - it was real fast with three guys getting under 2:00 - Alex Linden (LS), Brett Stein (Wayland) and Jack Benjamin (AB). Sasha and Will took 4-5 in big PR's of 2:00.4 and 2:01.5. In the girls 800 - another fast race. Juliet Ryan-Davis got boxed in for a chunk of the race and was frustrated with that. Nonetheless, she ran a PR of 2:18.6 for third, and Julia Frieze ran a 2:22.76 for 5th. We had a some disappointment in the 200, with no one from NS advancing. On the girls side, Candace was out from surgery, and Kwame and Georgiy just missed qualifying by a hair. Georgiy ran a big PR of 23.54 - which qualifies him for States!!!

Both Yong Cho and Azeezah Gray advanced from the prelims of the hurdles into the semi's. Nalis Mbianda won the shot put with a 35'9". She said, afterward, "I feel like it's my job to win the shot...." perhaps reflecting her love of the javelin. Liz Jeyaraj took third in the shot, and 6th in the discus.
In a big surprise, Joe Needleman threw a huge PR of 129' in the discus to take third and qualify for the states. Now, into some big performances - Ross McDonald is back and competing a full line-up for him - pole vault and long jump. He took first in the long jump, with 20'-1.75", and Yong Cho was right behind him in second with 19’ - 7.5”. Ross only took one jump. There was a head wind for the jumps which probably accounted for the modest results. The pole vault competition was postponed until Thursday, due to bad weather.

We took 2-4 in the girls pole vault with Cora Visnick just back from her rolled ankle at the Weston Twilight, and Katie Sandson taking 4th.

In the girls long jump, we were missing Candace because of her surgery, but Christie Lee stepped up to the plate (well, literally, she ran up to the plate), and took 2nd in 15'-5.25" missing 1st by 1/4”- well off her PR, but the wind was unfavorable (unlike Andover, where they had a huge tail wind).

The Ellis sisters took 3&5 in the high jump. Will Burgess and Gus Hergrueter took 4-5 in the high jump. Will's finally back and bringing in points after a long bout of mono.

We had a huge day from Pebbles, who took 1st in the triple jump with 35'-9.5". Gerald Arneaud managed to sneak in a 6th place finish in the triple. Also adding a point to the board was Chris Kim in the jav, with 139'-3”. Chris was unhappy with his performance, but scored a point, and is looking for a return to his 153' throws in the D1 states this week.

In the guys 400, we had the ever dependable Gerald Arneaud run a dominant 49.71. John M. ran a big PR of 52.91 to take 4th overall, taking 1st in the unseeded heat, besting Westford's Greg Hartofelis who ran in the seeded heat! Without many of their high scoring seniors, who were off in DisneyWorld, Westford had an off-day. The rain started up around this time, and LS ran Molly Binder again, despite a stress fracture in her shin. She ran the open 400m, taking it in a dominant 58.6. I saw her limping off the track after that and she said "this time, I'm really finished for real". Molly's going to Wake Forest next year, and plans on running track. She's been a huge asset for LS, and it's a shame to see her out for the rest of the season. Dani Pensack and Andrea Braver took 3-4 in the 400 with 61.12 and 61.70.

Next up was the 100m finals. James seems to like the rain/inclement conditions because he feels it gives him an advantage. I wasn't expecting a fast time, but James ran very strong and finished a couple of stride lengths ahead of the rest of the pack for a win in 11.11. Brian Crossman came up to me afterward and congratulated me, saying "he looks very strong, all that training really paid off". The 11.11 is fully-automatic timed, and, is now the new school record, replacing the 10.9 hand timed ones. The next fastest time was 11.41. At this point, we had a brief lull in the rain, and a rainbow came out. Emily Mepham's dad, Bill, pointed it out to us. Over time, we've gotten to know many of the LS parents quite well, and even though the rivalry between NS and LS can be intense, there's a strong bond among us all - being nail-biting track parents.

Pebbles Banks won the 100m for the girls in 12.75, and Katie Sandson added a couple of points with a 5th place finish.

Yong Cho took 2nd in the hurdles, taking 2nd, in 14.78. Azeezah Gray took 3rd in 16.48.
In the girls 2-mile final, LS scratched Andrea Keklak into the 4x8 (more on this later). I don't know for certain, but this may have been because Molly Binder was originally slated for the 4x8 and couldn't run. We had Kelsey, Madeleine, Melanie, Hannah and Sara all entered for NS. The rain returned and was really pouring this time. Kelsey led the way. Rachel Potter was the lone LS runner trying to challenge NS. She tried to hang up there with the front runners, but slowly fell off, with each NS runner sequentially passing her. We got places 1-5 - 30 points total in one race. This really clinched it for the girls.

In the boys 2-mile we had the familiar duel from indoor between Andrew Wortham and Jon Gault. After running in the lead for most of the race, in the pouring rain, Jon made a move with about a lap and a half to go, and put in a gap. They took 1-2. I think it was Andrew's second best time of 9:42. Cameron took 4th, in a fast 9:54. Jon’s time of 9:35.38 was a big PR.
Next up were the relays - it was still pretty wet out, and the batons were slippery. First up was the boys 4x1 - James to Yong to Georgiy to Kwame. The race was a real battle between AB and NS, with the two top AB guys on the 2nd and 3rd leg - giving Kwame a gap to make up. It was too close to call at the finish, but most people gave it to NS. Unfortunately, AB's third exchange was well out of zone, and they were DQ'ed. In the boys 4x8, Sasha ran a strong leadoff of 2:02, staying approximately even with LS on the handoff to John Beck. By the time the baton got to Will Cha on the handoff, LS had a substantial lead. But, at first I thought my eyes were deceiving me - LS had the 200/400 specialist Sean Kleeman running anchor. I could only recall Gerald’s first attempt at the 800, and what happened to him at 600 meters. Sean took off, and Will ran smart, holding to pace, not closing the gap much, but not giving up a lot either. With Will still chasing, Sean hit the 600 meter mark, and the demons descended. Sean tied up, and Will passed him smoothly and opened up a substantial gap, going in for the win in 8:13.81 - their best ever.

In the guys 4x4, John M. ran a very strong leadoff of 52.9, followed by a strong leg from Tal (52.1) - Gerald had a small gap to close with the CC anchor, who went out real fast, and then Gerald caught him for the win in 3:30.2.
So, the boys swept the 3 relay events, adding huge points!!

For the girls, our 4x1 was missing Candace for anchor and struggled with tough handoffs, taking 5th. With the 4x800m relay - there's a story and a half. We knew that LS was loaded and it would be tough in this signature event for both schools. Andrea Keklak was scratched from the 2 mile to take Molly's place. Juliet was fired up for the relay after the 800. We ran very strong legs, including 2:20's by Diana, and Kathy, but Julia got the baton about 10 meters behind Emily Mepham, nonetheless. What do you do when you get the baton behind a 2:12 800 runner? Julia went out hard, but couldn't close much of a gap and definitely felt it with about 300 meters to go. So, LS took it.

But, there were a number of post-race surprises in store, which came out slowly over time. The first surprise was when we found out the LS 4x800m relay was disqualified for an "ineligible runner". This turned out to be Andrea Keklak, who was scratched from the 2 mile to replace Molly. Here's what I've been able to determine happened: this was the first year that the seed submissions were electronic. From what I understand, once the entries are closed, if an athlete scratches in an event, they are out of the rest of the competition. My speculation is that this is to keep coaches from doing last-minute shuffling to gain an advantage, but allow for legitimate scratches due to injury. In any case, the coaches weren't fully informed of this prior to the meet, although the meet referee made this a rule for the meet. In any case, they DQ'ed LS'es 4x8 because of this scratch. Curiously enough, they didn't DQ NS, but we had done the same thing - Diana was scheduled to run the 800m, but was scratched to run in the 4x800m and the 4x400m relays. Steven caught this later, and, out of a sense of fair play, he DQ'ed our 4x800m relay.

The 4x4 had Dani to Kyle Remy to Emily Epstein to Diana. Dani ran a strong leadoff leg of 61, and the girls took 2nd to AB with a time of 4:12.
The score reported at the end of the meet was NS 162 on the girls side and LS 2nd with 102.33 - this included the DQ on the 4x8 for LS, but not NS.

The score, minus the pole vault was 122.5 for NS boys and 112 for LS. The pole vault was held the next day at Wayland, during the JV meet. There, Ross McDonald took first, and Roy took 3rd, with CC in between. I believe that, at best, LS took 6th.
So, the final score for the boys was a big win in 138.5 to maybe 113 for LS!!

Final adjustments, if my math is correct is 144 for NS and 104.33 for LS. There were some two and one point additions for other schools, but I don't think it affected the standings. Assuming this is correct, we have

NS 138.5 - DCL Championship, boys
NS 144 - DCL Championship, girls

With very strong showing by LS, and AB.
Overall, it was a great performance, with a huge number of PR's, and everyone going for those extra 2 or one points, which made the difference. What a day. A record, a sweep of the boys relays, a 1-5 sweep of the 2 mile, and real solid performances up and down the line.

The 2008 DCL League Champions from Newton South High School:

Ezra Banks - triple jump, 100m dash
Ross MacDonald - pole vault, long jump
Nalis Mbianda - shot put
Kelsey Karys - 2 mile
Gerald Arneaud - 400m, 4x400m relay
James Huth - 100m (school record), 4x100m relay
Yong Cho - 4x100m relay
Georgiy - 4x100m relay
Kwame Francis-John - 4x100m relay
John M. - 4x400m relay
Tal Inbar - 4x400m relay
Ben Seifer - 4x400m relay
Sasha Long - 4x800m relay
John Beck - 4x800m relay
Will Cha - 4x800m relay
Yuji Wakimoto - 4x800m relay

New state qualifiers:
Joe Needleman - discus 129'
Georgiy - 200m - 23.54
Kayla Jackson - jav - 95'
John M. 400m - 52.91
Ben Finch - 1 mile - 4:35.65

Go Lions!

John Huth