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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:
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