Weston Twilight, 3 May 08

Newton South had lots of incredible performances and lots of scorers.

Click here for Photos by S. Chari
Click here for Photos by M. Hergrueter
Click here for Photos by George

See earlier post for added photos from 30 April meet.

Coverage by John Huth:
We've had a spell of pretty sloppy weather this weekend, and the Weston Twilight Invitational presented a real challenge - kids had to warm up, stay dry, compete, refuel and repeat, sometimes three times. But, we had some huge performances and excitement. Newton South had a huge presence. I'm not completely sure, but I think we may have been the only school to run squads in all 6 relays (boys, girls in the 4x1, 4x4 and 4x8).
I'm biased toward relays because they're so much fun - the combination of individual and team performances, along with the "doing it for the team" ethos that emerges, it seems fitting that they're run at the end of meets.

We had one injury where we're waiting to hear the damage: Cora Visnick landed in a crack between the cushions in the pole vault pit and injured her ankle - having to be taken off the field. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it isn't too major. Cora's been working real hard this season.
As of this moment, I'm still waiting for results to get posted, and all I have to go on is my faulty memory of races and what the announcer said.
Some teams that showed up in strong force included Newton North, Westford, Bedford, CC, LS, Bromfield, Brockton and New Bedford. Although AB had a large number of entries, I didn't see them. I don't know what happened to Andover, either. I *thought* I saw some Andover runners warming up, but, I didn't see any competing, so maybe I'm mistaken. It's tough to run in that weather, so I'm wondering whether the coaches were afraid of injuries - particularly for the sprinters and jump events.

In the shot-put, Nalis Mbianda is on a roll - taking first overall. She's been throwing very well in the shot, but she says her first love is the javelin. We had a nice crew compete in the jav: Kayla Jackson, Nalis, Chris Kim and John M. Unfortunately, there were no outstanding throws from NS, but we enjoyed hanging out and watching the competition and talking about the event. One of the more interesting bits of trivia is the emergence of a kind of barber-shop-pole piping that adorns some javelins. When the javelins are thrown, they spin, and the barber-shop-pole painting makes for an interesting visual effect while they're in-flight. Ben Lincoln from Hingham threw 180' - it looked like a missile.

In the dashes, Katie Sandson advanced into the finals of the 100m. Likewise, James H. advanced to the finals. Yong Cho also advanced in the hurdles, with a commanding lead in his heat. Bryant Wang, the dramatic LS hurdler, got DQ'ed in the prelims for a false start, but did come back to win the 300m hurdles in 40.X.

The girls mile run was billed as the thriller in the meet, with Bridget Dahlberg running against Emily Jones from Bromfield and Emily Mepham from LS. Bridget's really matured as a runner - learning how to race, as opposed to just run. She tucked in behind Emily Jones for the first three-plus laps. Emily is used to longer distances, and although she's a commanding runner in the 2-mile, she doesn't have a strong top speed, and has to rely on a fast early pace to wear down her opponents. Typically, she'll negative split - meaning that each successive lap goes a bit faster than the previous, and by doing that, maybe take the kick out of the other runners. In this case, however, Bridget had enough in reserve from running smart, to be able to bust by Emily in the last 100 meters or so, to open up a fairly good lead to take first. Winning time was 4:58 - which is not only good, but outstanding, particularly if you figure in the weather. Emily Mepham hung in there until about 300 meters, when it appeared that she began to tie up, and couldn't follow the faster pace.

The boys mile featured a three way contest between Chelmsford's Chris Brown, Brockton's Carlos Montrond, and Charlestown's Omar Aden. In the end, Chris Brown was able to take the race.
Both the boys and girls 800m were interesting from the NS perspective. We had Juliet Ryan-Davis, Julia Frieze, and Diana Braver in the girls seeded heat. Also in were LS'es Ellie Hylton and NN's Carlyn Ranti. It was actually a very exciting race, with the lead changing a number of times and a fairly fast pace, given the weather. In the last turn, there was some jostling, and a bit of a domino effect between Juliet to Diana, transferring the momentum to Ellie, who fell, but got up and ran strong, taking 5th. Juliet was in the lead, and seemed to ease off ever so slightly at the finish line, allowing a fast closing Carolyn Ranti to nip her at the end. At that point, there was a bit of drama from one coach who was not keen on the jostling.

In the boys, we had the debut of Gerald Arneaud, who is trying this event, moving up from the 400. He stayed up close to the front up till about 650 meters, and then seemed to tie up at that point. Having been a 400 meter guy who has run 800's, I can tell you that the demons lurk around 600 meters, so I know the feeling well.

In the final of the boys 110m hurdles, Yong seemed to have a great start, but then faded halfway through his race. I asked him what happened afterwards, and he said he'd lost his concentration when he saw the other kids out of his peripheral vision. I told him that this was OK - it's better to get over that kind of thing in a meet like this, and be able to regroup in the future, when the points really count. All these little experiences are the only way athletes can progress - like Bridget learning to race, there are some things that you can only learn by getting out there in competition.

In the finals of the boys 100m dash - nearly a heart-attack for this father. James was running against Westford's Max Enos. Max is a very strong sprinter, and we'd received reports that he ran a 10.7 in the 100 at a meet on Wednesday. James' PR is something like 11.1. I tried to be as casual as possible, saying that "FAT is the great equalizer...." (FAT = fully automatic timing, the 10.7 was most likely hand-timed ) - but we were all nervous. James got a good start, but Max seemed to pull even at 50 meters, and perhaps get an edge. James kept his cool, was smooth and relaxed, and caught Max at the end, with maybe a couple of yards on him at the finish. Taking first! James ran a 11.26 and I think Max was in at 11.35 or so - FAT. They may be racing against each other at the Westford meet on Wednesday - a real nail biter coming up.

At this point, the announcer came on to say that Ross MacDonald had vaulted 13'6" in the pole vault, for a new meet record! Glad to see him back. We also got the news that Cora was injured in the vault.

In the girls two mile, Kelsey Karys took the race out at a strong pace, and Natick's Rebecca White tried to hang just behind her. Here's a case where the Emily Jones-style tactics worked in Kelsey's favor, and she pulled away from Rebecca, opening up a healthy gap, and winning in 10:50 or so.
The boys two mile was a tight race, with Andrew Wortham and Jon Gault dueling it out for much of the race. Cameron Fen has also been improving by leaps and bounds in the 2-mile. With about 300 meters to go, Jon took the lead, and I swear that I didn't think Andrew could answer, but he did, and kicked past Jon. With one last effort Jon, managed to put a last-ditch kick on and managed to snag Andrew at the finish line. Both PR'ed in about 9:40-9:42. Cameron slices another 10 seconds off of his PR, which had just come down to 10:00 at the home meet on Wednesday - finishing in 9:51.

To the relays!

In the 4x800 meter relays - first up was the girls. The lineup was our classic Juliet to Diana to Julia to Bridget. I'm trying to ignore the fact that the announcer hyped LS, who wasn't running. The girls did a great job. But, boy, you could tell the effects of the cold, rainy evening. The times were held down, and I won't torture anyone by listing splits. Considering this was 10 PM, after a long, cold wet day, I think it was amazing they could run as well as they did.
For the guys, John B. to Yuji to Will to Sasha, they were in a three way race with LS and Brockton. We fell back a bit from LS, but Will ran a very strong leg to catch LS and put a sizable gap. In the end, Sasha seemed to close a bit on the Brockton's anchor Carlos Montrond, but not enough to catch him. Again, the times would've been much faster if conditions had been better.
Then we had the 4x1's. The lineup was Pebbles to Katie to Azeezah to Candace. I think all four were there for some payback - singly struggling in the 100m, 100m hurdles and 200m, but collectively, they ruled to take 1st in 51.61.
In the boys 4x1 - we had both Newton North and Westford in the lineup. Newton North had the top seed going into the event of 44.0. It was James to Yong to Georgiy to Kwame. We had handoff problems, again - both on James to Yong (James seemed to run up Yong's back) and Yong to Georgiy. But, rule number one is "get the stick around", and they did that - I'm pretty sure they took 3rd, and edged out both Westford and Newton North.

Both 4x4's were a great opportunity for runners who hadn't gotten a lot of experience in relays, and I was very happy the coaches put together squads for this. In the girls relay, we had Kyle to Mary-Kate to Emily Epstein to Dani. There was a lot of back-and-forth in this relay, with Dani running a tough anchor leg, for a 4:22 finish. I don't have the exact placing, but I think it was third.
The boys had a fairly new lineup of John M to Tal to Ben Seifer to Gerald. They ran a very strong 3:32 - which is a very strong time, given that our previous best this season has been in the 3:35 zone, and it was such a cold and wet night.
Sorry if I got details wrong - or - worse yet, I couldn't cover all the stories.
Because of a snafu with the buses, the coaches couldn't take them home, and I accompanied what was left of the team on the short ride back to NS, where we shoveled the pole vault poles, and jav's and tents into the storage shed, and the bus disgorged the runners into waiting cars.
The next adventures - Westford and BL on Wednesday, and then the Andover Invitational on Saturday. The Andover Invitational is sure to be good - at least, I can't imagine how the weather conditions would be worse than last night. I have to say that I was truly surprised at how well the kids performed - I have to give it to them - running as well as they did in those conditions shows a huge amount of grit. I didn't hear anyone complain or use the weather as an excuse. When you have a day/night like that, and they're doing their best, learning lessons from competing, and coming out stronger on the other side, you know you have one amazing team.

Go Lions!