The Girl's & Boy's teams had the Tri-Valley League meet at Reggie Lewis on Saturday morning.
The Girls ended up having their best finish by far in a long time, finishing second to a powerhouse Hopkinton team that will challenge for the Division 3 title! To put this day in perspective, consider that the Hopkinton Girls have about 20 more girls competing than the Panthers. The Girls had 71 points compared to their best other recent finish (last year) with 50 points. The Boys finished 8th with 2 points.
Sydney Snow started things off by winning the mile with a time of 5:14.50, and scoring 10 points for the team. She beat the closest competitor by 13 seconds with the 26th best time in the state this year and an indoor PR! Lauren Salley finished at 6:05.41 for 13th. The boys had Tim Strange in at 5:18.24 for 22nd and Cam Waddell at 5:22.24 in 25th.
Emma Guccione was next on the PR brigade with a 7.71 in the 55 dash good for 3rd place (6 points), beating the Hopkinton girl who had a faster time in the preliminary heat!
Elana Daly PR'd with a time of 8.26 which was good for 11th out of 23 competitors.
In the Boys Dash, Rick Brown was 11th in 7.07 and Louis Rossi was 29th in 7.65
In the 55 Hurdles, Freshman Rebecca Stevens was Holliston's sole entry and PR'd with a 10.84 for 18th, but her day was just starting, it would get much better... Yoel Lignabou just missed making the finals at 9.09 (7th place) and Jesse Zanghi was 16th in 10.24.
The 600 had Bellingham's Sarah Edwards post a ridiculous 1:32.86 (3rd fastest time in the country this year!!) to lead the field, w/three Holliston runners in the event. Eve Bagley placed 5th with 1:42.67, and two more points. Helen Dolan got a 1:44.98 for 8th and Emma Sayers a 1:46.22 for 11th out of 18 runners. For the boys, Ryan Sofoul had a big 6 second PR to finish 10th at 1:31.24 and Andrew Milton went in at 1:35.29 for 14th and a PR.
Meanwhile in the Shot Put Kelly Alves crushed the field with an awesome 35'3.5" heave which beat her previous PR by almost 2 feet!! It also moved her up the leaderboard in the state to 16th - HUGE! It gave the girls 10 more points. Taylor Rowles JUST missed placing with a toss of 28'3", and Jana Paecht finished 20th at 23'3.5" For the boys, Mark Mulvaney was 8th with a throw of 38'3.5", Sam Radcliffe was 15th with 35'10.25" and a PR and Mike McKenna was 17th at 35'5.25"
Back on the track for the 300, we had another 3 competitors. Emma Guccione placed 6th (1 point) with a 44.43. Helen Dolan was 12th in 46.68 and Sara Winiker was 15th in 49.69. Rick Brown scored a point in his strongest event with a 6th place finish at 38.27. Jesse Zanghi was 14th in 40.81.
In the 1,000, Sydney Snow was hoping to pull off a rare double after her mile race. She led from the gun and was chased by Hopkinton's Izzy Giordano who had beat her once before. Sydney was not to be denied in running a strong 3:03.14 to beat Izzy by a full 3 seconds and score another 10 points! Alexis Mejia just missed scoring, finishing 7th in 3:24.58. For the Boys, Kevin Montain had a huge 10 second PR - 2:53.68 for 7th!
The girls two mile had Addie Datz (8th) 13:03.16 and Adri Grinder (9th) 13:42.94. The Boys two mile had Liam Engle in at 11:47.19 for 13th place and what looks like another PR.
The High Jump started after the sprinting events which were done about a good hour before things started to get interesting here. We have known for a while that our girls, Led by Madison Ward with a 5'4" PR would be among the last jumpers with a high chance of scoring some quality points. All three of our girls, Caroline Ward & Rebecca Stevens, along with Madison we knew were capable of jumping 5'+. We didn't know that they would finish 1-2-3 with a breakout performance by 'Becca who cleared 5' and was left alone with the Ward's and one other competitor who would soon bow out as well! So at the very end, we had just Caroline, Becca & Madison. Caroline while having cleared 5'1" in a previous meet, cleared 5'0" on her third attempt. Becca had already cleared it and was already in the rarified air of the 5'+ crowd, surpassing her previous PR of 4'11"! When they started jumping for 5'2", all three missed their initial attempt. On Madison's second attempt she flew over the bar with ease (having a good 2 inch clearance!). Not sure if it was Becca's second or third attempt, but she also cleared 5'2" and improved her PR by 3 inches!! Caroline just missed on all three attempts at 5'2", but Holliston's High Jumpers scored a valuable 24 points in the process!!
Madison 1st, Becca 2nd, and Caroline 3rd. To put this in perspective, Coach Levausseur mentioned that at the "relay" events where the High Jump is contested, the state record is 15' - which they easily eclipsed. (the only issue - you have to do it at that meet to qualify)
The Boys High Jump had Yoel Lignabou finish 9th at 5'6"and Ryan Sofoul at 5'4" finishing 14th.
The girls relays also finished well. The 4x400 team was able to get a longer break due to Madison being on the team and getting held up by the High Jump victory. So the first heat of the girls 4x400 went and then both of the Boys 4x400 teams went, giving our runners a nice additional rest for their weary legs (except Madison!). The team of Emma Guccione, Eve Bagley, Madison Ward & Sydney Snow finished 2nd to Hopkinton in a time of 4:13.28.
The Boys 4x400 team ended up finishing 6th at 3:44.83 and another point with a sixth place finish! This also a qualifying time for Divisionals and seasonaly PR!! I am not sure of the runners here - so someone shoot me an email (stephen.snow@verizon.net) and I will update this. Thank you.
The Girls 4x200 won their heat and finished 2nd overall to Hopkinton in a time of 1:58.49, for 8 more points. The team consisted of Helen Dolan, Elana Daly, Sara Winiker & Rebecca Stevens. (I think!) Those points brought the team to finish with a whopping total of 71 points!
UPCOMING DATES:
February 12th (Friday) 4:30 - Division 4 Meet - Reggie Lewis - have to qualify - here is the link, see page 8 for the standards and page 9 for the schedule: http://www.mstca.org/Winter_Season/Winter%202016/TrackIndoorFormat1516.pdf
February 20th (Saturday) 9:30 a.m. - All State Meet - Reggie Lewis
February 24th (Wednesday) 6:00 p.m. - Banquet - High School Cafe - details to come.
