We beat Westford 65 - 35 in our first scoring meet. Last week we were scheduled to be in a meet vs Notre Dame and Weston, but the leagued voted to not score cross over meets in which teams in the large school division compete against schools in the small school division. So the meet was non scoring and we were put in random heats where space was available. So it became a scrimage situation. This week our win counts as Westford is in large school division.
Westford has an outstanding tradition and they currently have a young team as do we so it was a good measuring stick kind of meet. This was a wonderful effort in terms of competitive focus and improvement. The entire team seemed to surge forward with improved marks.
Our meet this week always draws a great deal of almuni that are returning from college so it is a special time in our former kids watching the new kids blossom. This meet was very special in both the large numbers of alumni that turned out and also by the number of young kids on the team. We had at least 15 former kids come to support our current team and many were surprised by how many new faces that saw.
39 of the 50 kids on our roster are either in 9th or 10th grade and this is the youngest team that I can ever remember coaching. Our senior leadership is few in number, but they are doing a great job of helping the coaches teach our approach to the sport. They are doing such a great job that our team is up to speed and competing without a hitch. Across every event area all of our kids are very independent in their warm up, checking in and event execution well beyond our team experience. I am really about teaching process and being prepared and positive results will follow. In both regards our team is ahead of schedule. I am truly proud of how far this team has come in a very short time.
She is a team captain and is doing a great job working with Anna Hoyas to coach this event. In a short time Alekhya Chaparala has jumped 4'5" in this meet and first time jumper Kathleen Garrity has twice cleared opening height. In the long jump Kyra in her first indoor season has qualified for state, already jumping 16'-2" in her 2nd meet and we have some other frosh jumpers behind her that are promising.
I will mention a few stand out efforts in this writing and rotate others in during the season.
Kyra Visnick is in her first indoor season and I forget that as she was so steady for us last spring. She had the kind of day that shows great focus after adversity and her efforts were very couragous. She had a false start in the dash at the start of the meet. But she did a great job of moving on to the long jump. On her first attempt a boy ran from the track and right in front of her during her approach and Kyra crashed full speed into him. It was a very dangerous moment and shook her up a bit. Two jumps later she set a PR and state mark of 16'2". Then she lead off our 4 x 200 which is now a scoring event and we set a 3 second season best.
Freshman Caroline Delheim also had a busy, but good day. She ran a PR in the 300 by over 1 second placing 3rd and then ran her first time as our 3rd leg on the varsity 4 x 400 and that relay improved 9 seconds over last week and we won our heat with teams like AB and LS in the heat.
Sophomore Sasha Restrepo did a nice job remaining focused after Kyra's false start and took 2nd in the dash in a PR.
Jonee Harrison has had a great start to the season putting shot last week 28'10 and this week she set a PR of 29'5" which ranks 3rd in the DCL. Jina An was 3rd with 26'11"
Sophomore Lizzie Fineman won the 300 for the 2nd meet in a row and ran a strong 2nd leg on our 4 x 200. Our 4 x 200 team was Kyra Visnick (Jr), Lizzie Fineman (So), Ester Cho (So), Mary Testa (Sr).
Our 4 x 400 was Alekhya Chaparala (So), Hannah Frieldman (Sr), Caroline Delheim (Fr), Anna Rhatigan (So)
Our distance crew has been laid low by illness. Our top 3 distance runners along with several other varsity runners have all suffered for weeks with illness so Anna Rhatigan and Anna Laurence did a great job of helping the team with much less than 100%. So, kids with less experience have stepped up.
Sophomore Alekhya Chaparala won the 600 and freshman Sonya Nair placed 3rd in the varsity 600. Sophomore Yasime Hashemi has also been ill, but toughed out a 2nd place in the mile behind sophomore Anna Rhatigan. Sophomore Laura Cotter placed 3rd in the 2 mile.
Hannah Friedman won the 1000 and Emily Caggiano battled illness and took 3rd.
Another positive is that we had a number of new athletes compete so well in the JV events that we will be moving more kids up to varsity events giving us more depth.
Freshman Yuriko Fukumura ran a varsity caliber 8.21 in the JV 55 and Samantha Chin (So) was close behind with 8.38 . 9th graders Julia Lee and Sarah Moskowitz went 1-2 in the JV 600 in varsity times of 1:54.42 and 1:55.01. That was a nice surprise coming this early in the season.
Normally December is way too early to be too excited about what happens in meets as we are just getting started. But the combination of so many alumni and our team growth made this a very fun meet for all.
Take care,
Steven
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