All States in Fall River 7 June 2008

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Click here for photos by George
I made some camera mistakes and lost many photos.
Click here for Waldron's Wisdom and videos

Story by J. Huth:

It was a scorcher, with the first full-fledged summer-like day hitting us. Sitting in the stands, we got blasted by the sun and must've lost several liters of water without moving. Most of the athletes were taking shelter from the blast-furnace overhead by hanging out underneath the stands, in the shade. The track was black, and the infield was NewTurf, which added to the heat-factor for runners.

Points in the All-States are 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 for the top seven places. The huge number of teams that compete (75 scored on the boys side) and the number of competitors strongly affects how the overall meet scoring goes. In dual meets, overall depth matters, with the key is being able to cover all three places in every event. In the league championships, having strong performers in every event, and multiple good performers in events helps. In the Division meets, it becomes more of the top level performers. In the All-State meets, it often times is a couple of strong performers, plus enough depth to field at least one good relay team.
The first race of the day was the girls 2 mile. Kelsey was running against Bromfield's Emily Jones, who has the fastest 2-mile time in the nation. At least we were told that over the loud-speaker. Although Emily is an amazing runner, that statistic is a bit misleading, because many states compete either the 3000 or 3200, and there are a number of runners out there who have run faster equivalent times - e.g. Jordon Hasay from California. At the gun, Kelsey hung on Emily for about a mile, splitting roughly 79 seconds per lap. At the mile mark, Emily notched up the pace to about 76 seconds per 400, and began to open up a gap on Kelsey. Much to her credit, Kelsey stayed on pace, and took 2nd in 10:55. Emily ran a 10:33. For the conditions, those were good times.

In the boys mile, one of the favorites was David Wilson from Brookline. At the gun, the guys went out in a pack, running roughly 70-second splits until the mile (4:45) at that point Andrew Wortham was in the lead pack, along with Peter Gilmore in the lead, Galebach and Wilson. Into the 5th lap, Carlos Montrond made a bid for the lead, but was quickly overtaken by Wilson, then Burnstein (Brookline) takes the lead, and was passed back again by Wilson, who then led for the rest of the race, with the pack strung out. Andrew hung on for as long as possible - finishing 10th in 9:47.

In the 800m run, Newton North's Carolyn Ranti ran a dominant race, taking first in 2:13.04. LS'es Emily Mepham took 4th.

Ahead of time, on paper, if one scored the seeds going into the meet, Triton Regional would win it, with 39 points, Lincoln Sudbury 2nd with 35 points, and Newton South 3rd with 28 points and Bromfield 4th with 27 points. As Steven once said, "you can take all the top seeds, throw them up in the air and let them fall on the ground, and it's that predictable. Hindsight is golden, and we can see how things shook out for the schools:

Here's a summary of what changed for the schools between

Triton - Deena Latham - seeded 1st in 200m, took 2nd, 1st in long jump, took 1st (lost 2 points)
Rachelle Borque - seeded 4th in jav, didn't place ( lost 4 points)
Niki Wurdeman - seeded 1st in shot, didn't show up (lost 10 points)

Lincoln-Sudbury - Emily Mepham - seeded 1st in 800, took 4th (lost 6 points)
Ellie Hylton - seeded 4th in 800, took 6th (lost 2 points)
Claire Arthur - seeded 6th in 800, took 12th (lost 2 points)
Andrea Keklak - seeded 6th in mile, took 13th (lost 2 points)
4x8 relay - seeded 1st, took 1st - (no change)
4x1 relay - seeded 8th, took 8th (no change)

Bromfield - Katherine Finnegan seeded 8th in 200m, took 7th (added 1 point)
Lexie Daniella - seeded 14th in 400m, took 7th (added 2 point)
Bo Dunn - seeded 5th in 800, took 7th (lost 3 points)
Emily Jones - seeded 1st in 2 mile, took 1st (no change)
4x800m relay - seeded 8th, took 2nd (added 7 points)
4x400m relay - seeded 4th, took 15th (lost 5 points)
Katherine Finnegan seeded 3rd in long jump, took 4th (lost 1 points)

Newton South - Juliet Ryan-Davis seeded 7th in 800, didn't run for 4x8 (lost 2 points)
Bridget Dahlberg seeded 3rd in mile, took 2nd (added 2 points)
Kathy O'Keefe - seeded 5th in mile, took 5th (no change)
Kelsey Karys - seeded 2nd in 2 mile, took 2nd (no change)
Madaleine Reed - seeded 11th in 2 mile, took 9th (no change)
4x800m relay - seeded 2nd, took 3rd (lost 2 points)
4x400m relay - seeded 11th, took 9th (no change)
Pebbles - seeded 9th in long jump, took 9th (no change)
Nalis Mbianda - seeded 16th in jav, took 6th (added 3 points)

The coaches shifted Juliet out of the 800 to keep her fresh for the 4x800. Triton lost one of their top throwers, who didn't show up. Lincoln-Sudbury had what must have been a disappointing day for them, with Emily Mepham not performing as well as they would've hoped, but also other distance runners, Arthur, Hylton and Keklak not performing as well as they were seeded. In contrast, Bromfield came on pretty strong, running Emily Jones in the 4x800, taking 3rd.
Of course, early on in the day, we had no idea how things were going to transpire, and the order of business was making sure people checked in on time, stayed hydrated, stayed cool and were well warmed up.
About the time of the boys 2 mile, I looked back over to the javelin throwing area, and saw the girls taking practice throws. I ran over there, and saw Nalis, up for her first throw. She was glad to see me, and asked me what to do. I said "just throw it..." And she thew a 2 foot PR for 118'10"- leading her flight. Nalis' dad was there, watching from under an umbrella for shade, and Mimi and Kelsey were also there, watching the festivities. The heavy hitters came up in the 2nd flight, including Wayland's Elyse Ogletree and Laura Stern from Lunenburg. Laura threw one that was only a foot off the All-State record for 149', taking first. By the time the top seeds had finished, Nalis was still in the ranking, taking 6th for 3 points, and advancing to New Englands, which she was pretty excited about.

I was running back and forth between the javelin pit and the track to catch Gerald's race. He was in the slowest heat because of the problems he had checking in at the D1 states. He knew he had to run fast to be able to place, and had trained for that all week. He ran a strong race, coming in first, and pushing it every inch of the way, taking 8th in 50.29.
I missed the mile run because I was watching the javelin. Over the loudspeaker, I could hear the girls 1 mile run being called. It sounded like Kirsten Kasper from North Andover took it out first, Bridget hung on her, and then passed her, but Kristen came back in the end, to take first, with Bridget 2nd in 5:05.

In the boys mile, Brookline's Bob Gibson took a shot at heavy favorite, Charlestown's Omar Aden, leading him for much of the race. This took something of a toll on Robert, as Omar managed a strong kick to take first in 4:13.8, and Gibson faded, but not hugely, to take 3rd in 4:19.

110m hurdles - Yong was seeded third, and made it past prelims ino the seeded heat. LS'es Bryant Wang had a difficult prelim, and didn't advance to finals. Yong ran a strong race, a few tenths off of his PR, and took 4th overall.

Ross McDonald again cleared 14' in the pole vault to take first. He attempted the All-State record of 14'6", but just missed that.

In the girls 4x800m relay, Juliet Ryan-Davis had a blistering leadoff, showing a lot of determination, splitting a 2:16.55 to handoff near the lead. We had Diana to Julia to Kathy. There was a big battle with Bromfield, who put in Emily Jones for the 3rd leg. Kathy got the baton behind Bromfield and LS, but fought her way up to duel with the Bromfield runner, but missing 2nd by just a bit - her split was a 2:19 - if not a PR very close to it. The girls took 3rd overall.

In the boys 4x800m relay, again, a huge leadoff. This time Sasha split a 1:59.6 - his first time under 2:00. John and Yuji ran great legs with a 2:01 and a 2:04, and Will ran his fastest leg, closing in 2:01.25 for a new season best of 8:07.22, and good for third. Carlos Montrond for Brockton ran an amazing anchor leg that Will nearly was able to hold off.
The girls 4x400 took 9th in 4:06.37 - the best time for this squad. Note that the coaches held Bridget back from either relay to nurse her injury.

So....in the end, the girls took the overall score in the meet for All-State Champion, and it was a squeaker - NS had 29 points, and Bromfield had 28 points. We improved in some events - didn't expect to take points in the jav, for example, and were surprised by Bromfield in the 4x8, but managed to hang on. Not bad for a season, so far? 1st in the Andover invitational, 1st in the MSTCA Relays, tied for 1st in the DCL dual meet schedule, 1st in the DCL Championships, 1st in the D1 State Championships, and 1st in the All-State Championships.
Not ignoring the guys - powered by the 4x8 and Ross, the guys took 9th overall, with 22 points.

Next up - some of the competitors from All-States will move onto the New Englands next weekend, in Saco, Maine. Beyond that, there is the Newton Centre Athletics team of Kelsey, Bridget, Madeleine Reed, Kathy O'Keefe and Juliet Ryan-Davis, who are slated to run the 4x mile at the Nike Outdooor Nationals in Greensboro North Carolina.

Go Lions!

John Huth

I'd like to add congratulations to Charlestown for the win on the boys side:

Mass. All State Championships 7 June 2008

Click here for Results
Click here for photos by George

Newton South girls win all state championship by one point over Bromfield and two over Mansfield. 84 girls teams scored at least one point. Remember that many teams have nobody even qualify for this meet. Scorers for the girls were:
In the two mile Kelsey Karys stayed with Bromfield's Emily Jones for about half the race with Emily maintaining and Kelsey dropping off a little. Kelsey finished with a solid 2nd in 10:55 (Jones 10:33). These were very good times with the heat. Madeleine Reed finished in 9th place, one position out of points in a time of 11:17. Newton North's Margo Gillis a freshman, finished in 6th in 11:08.
In the 800, Juliet (7th seed) was held out to be fresh for the 4x800 relay. Carolyn Ranti from Newton North was the winner in a great race. see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbVVJLTO6sE
In the mile Bridget Dahlberg took 2nd and Katherine O'Keefe was 5th in times of 5:03 and 5:05. Bridget ran a great race considering she has not been able to train for the last few weeks because of a hamstring strain. She held off 3rd place by 0.03 seconds!
In the triple jump Ezra Banks jumped 35'-5 3/4" for 9th place. Ezra is a sophomore. This bodes well for future teams.
Nalis Mbianda was a little off in the shot getting 34' - 3 1/4" for 12th place. But, she came back strong in the Javelin setting a PR in 118' - 10" to take 6th place and score 3 important points.
The girls 4x800 was another critical race. We led Bromfield by 3 points going in. Bromfield put all their best runners in this relay and looked like they going to win until Lincoln-Sudbury nipped them right at the wire. NS was back a few seconds in 3rd. Bromfield picked up only 2 points on us thanks to LS. The score was now NS 29-Bromfield 28.
Neither team had a 4x100.
It was coming down to the last event, the 4x400. South had a slower seed and was in 1st of 3 heats ranked slowest to fastest. NS ran 4:06.37 and had to wait and see what 4th seed (4:03) Bromfield would do in the fast heat. I don't know why but Bromfield faded to 4:11 sealing the deal for South. The NS 4x400 ended up in 9th not scoring points but it didn't matter.

The boys scored 22 points for 9th place looking very good.
Since it is 95° at the computer and it and I threaten to go on strike, this report and photos will have to wait at least a little.
See Jon Waldren's Newton North report along with videos at:
http://nnhsxc.blogspot.com/
Search you-tube for "Mass state track 2008" for more videos.
HF

Mass. All State Championship 7 June 08 seeds

The seeds have been posted for the the Saturday All State Championships
Click here for seeds

Info from John Huth:

Field events start at 10 AM. There's typically a set of flights for the prelim round, and then a set of 3 throws/jumps in the final round (triple jump, long jump, jav, discus, shot).
Triple Jump (b/g)
High jump (g/b)
Shot put (g/b)
Discus (b/g)
Javelin (b/g)
Long Jump (g/b)
Pole Vault (b/g)

Track events at 11 AM girls followed by boys
2 Mile
800m
300m hurdles
400m
200m trials
1 mile
100m trials
100m hurdles trials
110m hurdles trials
200m dash finals
100m dash finals
4x800m relay
4x100m relay
4x400m relay

In terms of timing - it should go reasonably quickly - because the number of heats is limited by the total number of entries.
Location is Durfee High School, 360 Elsbree Street, Fall River
Directions - Rt. 128 South to Rt. 24, south - follow this about 36 miles.
Exit 5 off of Rt. 24 for US-6 toward Eastern/Ave/President Ave
At President Ave. Rotary, take the first exit onto President Ave/US-6 West
after about 0.3 miles, take a right on Elsbree Street.

As usual, get there early for parking.
I'll try to send around a preview - but quickly -

Big races for NS in the girls mile and 2 mile. Kirsten Kasper joins the mix in the girls mile, Emily Jones in the 2 mile. Should be interesting races. We have both the boys and girls 4x8's which are pretty highly seeded. The girls 4x4 is also in there. Nalis in the shot put and jav. Yong Cho, Ross MacDonald, Gerald Arneaud and Andrew Wortham are in the 110m hurdles, Pole vault, 400m and the 2 mile. All have big shots at placing.

The boys 1 mile features Omar Aden from Charlestown - the fastest qualifying. The big question is whether Robert Gibson from Brookline can make it competitive.
(report by John Huth)

Mass. Division 1 championships, 30 May 2008

One long successful day. FULL story.




Click here for results
Click here for Boston.com story
Click here for Katie Sandson photo on Boston.com
Click here for Photos by George
Click here for photos by S. Chari
Click here to see Ross clear 14' in the pole vault

Story by John Huth:

As background for y'all - the Massachusetts outdoor season is organized in leagues that compete against each other, but, when it comes to the final meets of the season, it's organized into six divisions. In eastern MA, there are four divisions, based on school size. The dual county league schools are scattered across the divisions, but we saw Acton Boxborough, Lincoln-Sudbury, and Boston Latin there from DCL's in our Division 1 meet. In addition to the eastern divisions, there's also a Central Mass class meet, and a Western Mass class meet. The top four finishers of each class meet advance to the All States. In addition, there is room for wild-cards, where anyone with a top-15 finish in an event can also sneak in to All States. The latter is pretty rare, but sometimes happens. In a lot of ways, the D1 state meet is the toughest - many athletes qualify, but few make it on to the next level - so this is typically the last hurrah for many who've been big contributors to the team all season. It can get to be quite emotional, particularly for the seniors.

Coming into the meet, the Newton South girls had already showed strong promise - in the Andover Invitational, in the MSTCA relays, and in the DCL Championship meet. The guys were also looking strong from the DCL Championships - with a possibility of a strong placing. Candace Bailey was still out because of minor surgery (a cyst) that hadn't fully healed. Candace started out indoor with a stress fracture in her foot, which took a long time to heal. By the middle of outdoor season, she was back to her strong form, jumping PR after PR in the long jump, and with some amazing anchors in the 4x100 meter relay. So, the dual meet with LS turned out to be her last high school meet - going out with a great performance. Good going Candace.

This was our third meet in a row at Lincoln-Sudbury - we were beginning to feel like it was home.
As usual, early on my attention was divided between the running events and the javelin. First up was the girls 2 mile. There was an early pack of Kelsey, NN's Margo Gillis, Madeleine Reed, Alyssa Pisarik (Chelmsford), Leah Gellineau (Brookline), Melanie Fineman and LS'es Rachel Potter. Kelsey was in the lead, as typical. As the race went on, the top three of Kelsey, Margo and Madeleine remained at the front. At a certain point - about the mile mark, Kelsey kicked it up a notch and created a significant gap. Margo and Madeleine then battled it out for second. In the end, it was Kelsey first, Madeleine 3rd and Melanie taking 6th for 17 points right off the bat. Margo is a freshman at North, and didn't compete in indoors.
In the guys 2 mile, it was a big day for Brookline. We had an early pack of Brookline's David Wilson, Michael Burnstein, Philip Galebach from Medford, Carlos Montrond from Brockton, NS'es Andrew Wortham, and Peabody's Alex Gomes. They went by pretty close together until maybe a couple of laps to go, when it became a real guts race, with Wilson, Montrond and Burnstein leading the charge, but no one wanting to give up the prize. In the end Wilson/Burnstein took 1-2 with the winning time of 9:27, substantially off Wilson's best. Montrond had a major collapse with 200 meters to go getting passed by Burstein and Galebach and almost Andrew. Andrew ran the race of his career, hanging on for everything it was work, and taking 5th in 9:37.88 - off of 4th by a few hundreths! This is yet-another big PR for Andrew. (The last photo in H. Finch’s collection of the 2 mile is at the 200m to go mark where it looked like Montrond would get at least 2nd. You can barely see Philip and Andrew. Carlos would later make up for this race with a spectacular last leg of the 4x800 in a rumored 1:53).


The girls 800 was loaded, with a lot of LS representation in Emily Mepham, Ellie Hylton and Clair Arthur. Also, there was NN'es star runner, Carolyn Ranti and Andover's Colleen Shannon. Juliet Ryan-Davis was our lone entry, as Steven was trying to keep things as fresh as possible for the relays. Mepham ran a very strong race, taking first in 2:13.78. Juliet took 6th in a very fast 2:17.66, which I think is a PR for her!

In the boys 800m, Newton North's Seb Putzeys was the strong favorite, with a 1:55 seed. He took the lead from the start and just pulled away from the pack. Dan Fava from Malden Catholic lost a shoe and ran with one foot wearing only a sock - hanging in there with the crowd until a final bout of kicks. Eventually, Seb took it, going away in 1:56.05. Jack Benjamin from AB took the battle for second in a huge 1:58.64.

Down at the jav pit, we saw the wages of bad form taking their toll on the season. The trick in the javelin is to use the whole body in the throw, with a lot of torso rotation used to power the throw. A neophyte introduced to the event will certainly start out as an "arm" thrower, which can work reasonably well at first, but leaves the door open to shoulder and elbow injuries. With a whole season behind many of the throwers, there were a lot of arm injuries surfacing. Brendan Huntkowski from LS had a bad elbow, and, where he had thrown 156' in the LS/NS dual meet, he was only to manage 135'. Llikewise Ben Cutting from LS had a shoulder problem bad enough that he opted out of his last throw. Winner Steve Lattari from Andover took it with 172'.

On the girls side, Nalis came, fresh off a win in the shot-put with a throw of 35'07.5". Striking looking Nika Oulette from Brookline was throwing very far - in the 117' range. 117' was enough to take it. Nalis was nervous on her first few throws, with the all-important timing on the "block" - where the foot plant is coordinated with the throw - was off. Finally, she was able to settle down and got off a 113' heave for 2nd place. Nalis single-handedly got NS 18 points!

While the girls jav was being competed, I heard the gun go off, and shouts of "go Gerald, go..." and I saw Gerald swing around the curve, way ahead of the pack. This seemed odd, because I was expected him to run in the seeded heat. When the jav was over, I went over to find out what happened. It turned out that Gerald had missed the call for the 400m, and was slotted into the slowest heat at the last minute. He tried to run for time, and came across for 51.12 - which is quite a performance all alone, and it was good enough for third. Unfortunately the duel with Chelmsford's Ryan Buckley never materialized, and Ryan eventually took it. Although Gerald now advances to All-States, his time will make it unlikely to get placed into the top seeded heat.
As long as we're talking about this sort of thing - Roy Ribitzky had a surprising "no-height" in the pole vault. So, that's the season and high school career for Roy. Roy's been a real backbone of the team, keeping the practices under order, showing a huge amount of character coming back from a hamstring pull during indoor.
James likewise had a disappointment in the 100m. In his prelim heat, he got an 11.40, well off his PR, and not enough to get into the finals. Perhaps as a consolation prize, there was a great photo of him next to AB's DJ Brock in the Saturday edition of the Globe.

So, what happened to the big three seniors? I don't really know for sure, but my gut feeling is that they were really aiming at the DCL Championships, and put everything they had into that meet - and it showed, with some huge performances - a record and a big league win. Coming back for the next week is a tall order, particularly when sandwiched between various end-of-senior-year activities. I compared notes with another track-dad - Charlie Kelley whose daughter is the captain of the Woburn girls team. Woburn was on top of the indoor competition, but had a sort of flat D2 day - a lot of the kids were saying that they were tired from end-of-season competition. I can attest that it's difficult to come back from a big meet in just a little over a week and regain the same intensity. Good going guys - you've given us some wonderful memories and great leadership for the team! I look at the DCL Championships as their real statement for the team - and what a statement.

I bumped into another senior who is done for the season - LS'es Molly Binder, who had been struggling all season with what first seemed like shin-splints, but turned out to be a stress fracture. She finally decided to give her leg a rest and was walking around with an air-cast on her leg. She seemed in really good spirits, and was almost happy that the season was over. Molly is really looking forward to Wake Forest. Congratulations to Molly on a great high school career!

In the 110m hurdles, a senior got caught. LS'es Bryant Wang was viewed by some as the odds-on favorite in this event, but junior Yong Cho put together a tremendous race. During the indoor season, we had a similar matchup in the 55m hurdles between Yong and Bryant in the D1 Championships, but Yong false-started, knocking him out of competition. One twitch and it was a season-ender. Early in the outdoor season, when Bryant bested him at the Weston Twilight, Yong told me that he lost his focus about midway through the race. I said that it was just a matter of time before he was able to really bear down. And, he did just that, winning the hurdles in a big PR of 14.48, just edging out Bryant by 0.01 seconds. No twitches, no lost focus, just flat out running for the win. Way to go, Yong.

The girls mile was really something and shows what depth LS and NS have in the distances. Lincoln Sudbury's Andrea Keklak has a tremendously fast finishing kick, and her strategy is to typically sit on the shoulder of the lead runner and then blast off with about 200 meters to go. This can be particularly vexing for the pace-setter. Since I don't know what Steven said to Bridget before the race, I can only speculate that he encouraged her to not immediately jump to the lead. In any case, no one seemed to want the lead, like it was a hot potato, and the first lap was practically a jog. At some point, maybe 600 meters into the race - probably about the time Bridget passed the location on the fence where Steven was standing, she just took off like a rocket, surprising most of the pack, and opening up a substantial gap. From that point on, Bridget had the pedal to the metal and wouldn't let up. Andrea Keklak gave chase, but the gap was too large.

Andrea probably used up too much effort chasing Bridget and Kathy O'Keefe came on very strong at the end passing 3 runners in the last lap to take 2nd. So, we had a 1-2 finish there. Bridget's time of 5:03 was well off her PR, but that's not surprising, given the slow first lap. Kathy's time of 5:05.93 is a huge PR for her - 5 seconds. Now that I'm looking at the 4 x mile relay at the Nike Outdoor Nationals, I'm beginning to wonder whether Newton Sou...er...Newton Centre Athletics might not be able to pull something off (knock wood, salt over the shoulder). You should also realize that both Kathy and Andrea are freshmen - and running in the 5:05 to 5:06 zone for two freshmen in the same league is really something. Wow.

In the unseeded heat of the girls mile, Sonya Freeman ran her last race of her high school career, dueling back and forth for first place, and running a a 5:33. Sonya's been a tremendous asset for the team over the years. I remember when she hit her goal of going under 12-minutes in the 2-mile during indoor - this was the big one for her and a real inspiration to the younger members of the team.

The boys mile was a showdown between Brookline's Robert Gibson and Chelmsford's Chris Brown. There was some back-and-forth early on, but Gibson began a long march with about 600 meters to go, and Chris just couldn't close it up. Robert kept looking back over his shoulder, as if he couldn't believe that he had such a large lead, and even eased up a bit at the finish. The winning time of 4:24 is fast, but watch out - Omar Aden from Charlestown ran a 4:16 in the D2's.

In the girls triple jump, Pebbles got 2nd with a great leap of 36' 06". Pebbles has been a big scoring contributor to the team all season, with efforts in the 100m, triple jump, and lead-off for the 4x100m relay. Cora Visnick managed to snag 6th in the pole vault.
Ross MacDonald had a huge day in the pole vault, PR'ing in 14'00" - one inch off the meet record! Ross has been making a big comeback, after dealing with injuries for a large fraction of the year. 14’-0” is a new school record. Earlier in the season Ross broke Jay King’s 1967 record of 13’-1”.

Next up were the relays. The point scores were beginning to come in, and showed the NS girls with a pretty strong lead, but none of us wanted to jinx it by celebrating early. In the girls 4x800, we had a familiar 1-2 finish with LS and NS - with LS'es 9:25 a new meet record, and NS's 9:31.6 a strong showing. Juliet ran a strong leadoff of 2:21.8, to go with her fantastic 2:17 in the 800.
The boys 8x800 - what a showing! Sasha ran a 2:00.3 leadoff leg - his fastest yet, and oh-so-close to under 2:00 to hand off the baton in the lead to John Beck. Sasha ran very hard for his middle 400, which was a gamble that paid off. John (2:03.4) then handed off to Yuji, who maintained the lead, handing off to Will in 2:04.4. Will had his work cut out for him, with Carlos Montrond of Brockton, and Mike Masse of St. John's Prep behind him. Carlos ran an astonishing 1:53 to catch up and pass Will on the last straight, as did Masse - but Will managed to hang on for third, splitting a 2:01.6. They took 3rd in 8:10:03 - which is, yet again, a new PR for the quartet.

We didn't run a girls 4x100m because of Candace's surgery (see above).

In the boys 4x100m, we had the familiar quartet of James to Yong to Georgiy to Kwame. It was in the second-to-last heat, and, in the back of my mind, I was saying to myself "this is James' last high school race...enjoy it.." They got the stick around in a respectable 44.37 - good for 7th place.

The girls 4x4 had Dani Pensack to Andrea Braver to Kyle Remy to Julia Frieze. All four ran strong legs, with a strong leadoff by Dani in 60-flat and anchor from Julia in 60.9 for 4:06.44 - good for 6th place.

Finally - as the light levels began to drop at sunset, we had the last event of the day - the boys 4x400 meter relay. We have three underclassmen who have really come far in the 400 meters - John M., Tal Inbar, Ben Seifer. Gerald got to anchor this. The boys ran really well, with splits in the 52-53 second range. Ben put together his fastest leg yet, and the guys managed to snag 6th place in 3:29.

That's how I saw it from the stands and the field. It was only left to listen to the final score.
The girls WON THE DIVISION 1 TITLE - 74 points, to second place finisher Lincoln-Sudbury with 53. Often times these meets can be won by one or two superstars. This season, we've heard reports of some state meets that are won by a single individual, when no others are running for a team. In this case, it was really a team effort, where we got big points in the throws from Nalis and Liz, in the triple jump from Pebbles, from Kelsey, Madeleine, and Melanie in the 2-mile, from Bridget and Kathy in the mile, from Cora in the pole vault, from Julia in the 800, from the 4x800 meter relay and from the 4x400 meter relay. That's a lot.

The guys took 7th overall, and the boys competition was pretty tight. Brockton took first, and showered their coach with a tub of ice-water. Newton North took 2nd, just one point behind Brockton.

Advancing to All-States for sure on the girls side are Kelsey and Madeleine in the 2-mile, Bridget and Kathy in the mile, Nalis in the shot and jav, Pebbles in the triple jump and the 4x800m relay. On the guys side, we have Yong in the hurdles, Ross in the pole vault, and Gerald in the 400m and also the 4x800m relay. I'm pretty sure that covers all the top 4 place finishes. There is an outside chance that some of the 5th and 6th place finishes will be in the top 15 state-wide and others will get into the All States - for that we have to wait. The Central and Western Mass meets were delayed from Saturday because of weather and are being competed today (Monday). We probably won't know about other entries until Tuesday. I'll keep y'all posted.

The All States are being competed at Durfee High School in Fall River - close enough to be a fairly easy drive. New Englands are up in Saco Maine, although many coaches opt to not go there, instead focusing their top kids on the Outdoor Nationals. Speaking of that - we netted over $3000 in the cookie dough fund-drive. A big thanks to Christine Frieze for coordinating!

Go Lions!
from the infield by John Huth