April 16th was the opening day for the Boys and Girls Outdoor Track and Field teams. Hyde School up in Bath hosted the meet on their newly resurfaced track (though it seems a resurfaced track does not keep away high winds and freezing cold temperatures) with 3 full teams and 2 individuals in attendance. The boys team were decidedly victorious and the girls team finished 2nd with only 5 girls competing. You can view full boys and girls results here.
It is hard to pull out all of the efforts that helped us to succeed on Saturday. It was a bitterly cold day with strong winds that in no way helped performances. Staying warm when not running was a challenge and even harder was staying sufficiently warm during warm-ups so that muscles were ready for competition. In the field events Morgan Scully was a stand out on the girls side winning both the shotput and the discus with 2 career bests. Adding icing to the cake in the shotput – Kayla Rose and Julia Thompson rounded out our scoring pulling in 3rd and 4th respectively (NYA grabbed 3 of 4 scoring places). With another of the girls throwers missing this week the circles look like they may be a very strong area of competition for the girls. In the jumps Moira Lachance was very patient in the HJ as she was forced to go through a tie-breaker for 2nd place (an uncommon occurence) and ended up 2nd at a height of 4’3″.
On the boys side Cam Rayder had a standout day hitting the automatic state qualifying mark in the shotput and winning the event with a toss of 40’10.5″. Alden Kelsey also had a massive career best (over 2′) throwing 33’1.5″. In the jumps Mohamed Dahia won the triple jump with a provisionally qualifying mark of 36′ 9.5″ while Nick Rayder won the HJ leaping clearly over 
5’2″ with Asad close on his heels at 5′ to finish 2nd. Asad Dahia was also able to pull off a 2nd place finish in the long jump despite not having a clear mark and jumping off a shortened approach. The field events as a whole definitely look like a strong area for the boys this season.
On the track the sprints suffered greatly with the cold and the wind. the 100m dash and the hurdles dealt with a horrid head wind on the final stretch yet times were still extraordinary for the conditions and at this point in the season. Nick Rayder cut over half a second off his career best time in the 100m dash to place 2nd in those conditions… that just shouldn’t be possible. While Jake Burns was one of several athletes to fall victim to slight strains due to cold weather he was still able to pull off a 3rd place finish in the 100m. In the hurdles Mo won by a landslide qualifying automatically for states. On the girls side – Maura Anderson ran her first ever outdoor track race and finished 2nd in the 100m dash. Moving along to the 200m the girls went 1-2-4 with Morgan, Moira L., and Maura A. while the boys had Nick R. finish 2nd. In the 400 the boys finished 1-2 (Cam Regan and Grant McPherson) each running HUGE career bests.
As we move on to the distances the boys 800 was clearly NYA from the gun with Alex Coffin and Cam Regan bolting to the lead and holding it to finish 1-2 and both qualify provisionally for states. Next up was the 1500 (a distance only run in the MAISAD league along with the 3000) and once again NYA was dominant on both the boys and the girls side. Hillary Detert started strong but patient in the girls race and while she was in 2nd for the first lap she won by over half a lap in the end. Alex Coffin, Rudy Guliani, Evan Kendall, and Brian Trelegan showed just how strong NYA distance is on the boys side going 2-3-4-6. And last but not least was the 3000. Hillary Detert once again 
handled the race expertly, pushing herself the entire way. She had won the race before it was half over yet she continued to push herself for a strong time and it paid off as she finished in 12:42 which is the 5th place all-time finish for NYA. On the boys side Evan Kendall ran away with the 3,000 and achieved his personal goal of 2nd on the all-time list winning the event in 9:43 (almost a 1 minute career best). Rudy Guliani was close behind after an ongoing duel with a runner from Gould he was able to finish 2nd in a huge career best time of 10:10.
Finally – every relay NYA entered was victorious on Saturday. The girls 4×400, the boys 4×400, and the boys 4×100 all ran solid races given how little we practiced exchanges and relay running.
The meet ended on time and, of course, just as the wind died down. The boys captains awarded the first golden shoe of the season to Evan Kendall for his drive in training and the obvious payoff in his performances in the meet.
For a full set of photos (I didn’t take as many as I would have liked) see the photo page.
For current state qualifers and standards check here
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Congratulations all!