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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
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