2/11/2011
USM Gorham was the site of the Western Maine Conference Championships on Friday afternoon/evening/late night. The team arrived at USM at 3:30 and left the track for the last time this season around 11:45pm. Although the meet started smoothly (it almost seemed as though we were running ahead of time with the field events) it quickly went downhill when the running events began and the timing system went on the fritz. Slowly but surely the meet time schedule got extended until we were running over an hour late. The team stayed in high spirits and didn’t let anything get to them – all the way through the end of the night and the 4x200m relays.
First off, though I can’t mention every athlete specifically in here I want to note that if athletes did not PR this meet they were within just a hair of their best. All across the board the NYA Indoor Track and Field team showed up ready to compete and followed through with their goals.
Meet Highlights:
Over in the shotput circle the team the girls started off the meet with both throwers hitting best distances. Both girls (Sally LaPointe and Julia Thompson) threw 7″ season bests to finish in 10th and 13th respectively. On the boys side both AJ Hardy and Charlie Gerrity were within inches of PRs placing 9th and 26th while Cam Rayder came up huge in the first round to PR by almost 4 ft. hitting 43′ even and qualifying for states with his first indoor career throw over 40′. Cam placed 4th overall.
In the girls HJ Moira Lachance, though not able to hit her PR height from last week, was able to pull off a 4’4″ clearance which was good for 3rd place in the senior division.
The hurdles once again hosted a string of improvements with Hannah Hearn making the finals of the Jr. Division by besting her school record running 10.46 while Jillian Bjorn-Caron was close behind in 10.95 another best time which moved her up to #2 on the all-time list. On the boys side Jake Burns broke his school record in the Jr. Hurdles once again running 8.90 and earned the title of Western Maine Conference Champion. The nearest competitor was almost 1 second back. In fact, you can see in the photo gallery a photo of Jake crossing the finish line before the 2nd place hurdler was even over the final hurdle.
In the Jr. Girls 55m dash all 3 competitors hit PRs on Friday night. Jillian Bjorn-Caron was first for the team running 8.64. Next over the line was Eryn Dioli, back in action after a short break, who ran 8.78 (her 2nd time under 9 seconds) and our third runner, Nyajal Ngoal, hit 9.01 seconds to improve for the first time in a few weeks. Aldis Gamble was the sole Jr. Boys entry in the 55m for NYA and was able to best his time by .05 seconds to finish 22nd.
The 1 mile run was up next with both Hannahs (Twombly and Hearn) competing. Hannah Twombly hit her season best of 5:38 to finish 3rd while Hannah Hearn ran a huge PR of 5:43 (9 seconds off her best) to finish 7th. Both girls had exciting, tactical races from start to finish.
The 400m was next on the track. Emily Claytor and Bailey Clock competed in the Jr. Divison with Emily hitting a new best of 1:12 and Bailey just missing her PR running 1:14. In the Sr. Division Sarah Jordan just missed her best time running 1:08 but was able to move up from the back of the pack in the fast heat to place 4th. On the boys side Jacob Scammon was our only entry but he finished the race in style laying out into a full “superman” over the line which helped him to edge out the competition and earn a 5th place ribbon.
In the 800 NYA had 2 very exciting races. On the girls side Sasha McLean and Hannah Twombly finished 5-6 with both girls hitting PRs. Sasha dropped her time by 3 seconds and Hannah by fractions. Strong finishes were the key in both of these girls races.
On the boys side Alex Coffin and Nick Kolkin took it out strong in the 800. Alex ran from the gun like he was on fire with Nick close on his heels. As the race wore on Alex started to pull away from the pack with one other runner and dueled back and forth all the way to the finish line to place 2nd (he was seeded 8th) with a new PR time and a new position as 5th on the all-time list. Nick Kolkin finished within tenths of his best but was unable to close as fast as usual to break under that elusive 2:11 barrier. However – a 7th place finish from a 10th seed shows a strong dominance in the 800 by NYA.
Next up was the 200, late in the evening, and so, predictably most athletes in the meet struggled to run best times in the 200m. However a few NYA athletes were able to pull it off. Nick Rayder and Bill Tao both bested their times by significant amounts by cutting off .2 of a second and hitting their season goals.
Next up was the 2 mile. Hillary Detert started the race about 11pm and finished it 12 minutes and 58 seconds later. Her goal coming in was to finish top 6 and qualify for states and with 4 laps to go it wasn’t looking good but Hillary pulled together an exceptional finish to break under 13 minutes and not only qualify but also place 6th.
The relays were a strong finish for NYA at the championships with all 3 relays running season bests and placing top 6. Oddly all three relays did this from the slow heat as well. The Jr. Girls and the Sr. Girls were both 6th while the boys pulled off a strong 4th.
Next up is the Class B State Championships at Bates College on Monday Feb. 21st starting at 10am. We will be bringing a boys and girls 4×200 and 4×800 along with all of the individuals who have qualified
Entries and a time schedule will posted soon. Thanks to all the parents and athletes for making this meet, and the season, such an enjoyable successful one!