January 11th, 2013
The North Yarmouth Academy Panthers had their 2nd meet of the regular season at the University of Southern Maine on Friday evening. As a team the girls were part of an exceptionally close meet where they finished 3rd – just one point out of 2nd in the 8 team meet. On the boys side the competition was a bit stiffer, however the meet was equally close – in the end the boys ended up finishing 8th.
In the shot put there was one significant personal best by Abby McKelvy who threw almost a 1 foot personal record to finish 11th. In the junior division both Muriel and Shelby were able to grab some points for the team by finishing 3rd and 6th respectively. Over on the other side of the track at the high jump pit Ben Claytor redeemed himself this week after not clearing a height in meet 1. Ben not only cleared opening height but kept jumping all the way up to 5’2″. That height ties him for 5th place on the NYA all-time top 5 list and earned the team 8 points for the 2nd place finish. On the girls side Claire Maurer debuted in the high jump this meet and sailed easily over opening height. In the long jump two girls and two boys leaped to personal records. Maddie Cutten jumped a whole foot farther than last week while Claire Maurer added a few inches to her distance. On the boys side Matt Malcom continued his steady improvement in the event adding a few more inches to his best while Jake Burns flew to a career best distance of 17′ 8″ which was just a few inches shy of 6th place. In the triple jump all of the jumpers were significantly fatigued by the time they competed but Jillian was still able to pull out a 6th place finish with her final jump while Ben Claytor actually used all of his warm-up to jump his best distance of the season to place 4th.
In the distance races John, Ellis, and Hannah had a great night. John started the night off with an 800m race which ended up being his career best time by a little under one second which was good for 6th place. He then came back for the 2 mile, with less rest than last week and was still able to chop 20 seconds off of his time to finish 3rd. Ellis ran her season best in the 800m as well and was only one second off of her career best time after a gutsy and competitive race. Hannah ran only one event on Friday night but did so in style running a 30 second career best in the 2 mile to win the event by over a minute and half with a time of 12:29.
In the hurdles Maura got her wish and ran well under 12 seconds to finish in a massive career best time of 11.66 while Jillian’s time was just .1 off of her time from last week and earned her a 4th place finish. Maddie Cutten tried her hand at the hurdles for the first time and completed the race easily to finish 8th in the junior division. Jake was about .25 seconds off of his season best in the hurdles but was still able to grab a 4th place finish. In the 55m dash the girls junior division saw Emily and Shelby both hit season bests with times of 8.51 and 9.94 respectively. In the senior division all three of the girls who competed ran their best times of the season as Nyajal, Jen, and Abby all chopped off significant chunks of time. On the boys side Abrahim ran his first open race of the season and ran a steady strong race in the junior division while Dean Walters ran .01 seconds faster which is all that was needed to add his name onto the top 5 all-time list in the 55m. For the second week in a row NYA dominated the 400m dash as Emily won the junior girls division in a season best time of 1:12 followed closely by Muriel who finished in 4th. In the senior girls division Jillian ran the 400m for the first time this season and placed 2nd in the event in a career best time of 1:11. 
On the boys side Matt Malcom dropped his time almost a full second in the junior division while Jake and Aldis represented well in the senior division finishing 2nd and 4th respectively. Jake’s time was actually within a second of the state qualifying time as well. The last individual sprint on the track was the 200m where the senior girls saw 3 girls place in the top 6. Nyajal, Abby, and Jen placed 3, 4, 5 respectively with Jen running .1 seconds faster than last week while both Abby and Nyajal had their debut races. In the senior boys division the sole improvement came from Dean Walters who ran .14 seconds faster than his career best time and is now within tenths of a second of the state qualifying time.
The 4×200 improved their hand-offs AND their times considerably this week. The girls junior division ‘A’ team ran about 9 seconds faster than last wek to place 5th in 2:08 while the ‘B’ team pulled together a strong competitive effort to end the night. In the senior division the girls ran about 5 seconds faster to finish in 2:12 which was good for 3rd place. On the boys side tired legs from the long night and a few too many 400m runs left our team with a time a little slower than last week but still good enough for a 6th place finish. Next week we have our first of 3 early meets at USM. The meet on Friday will start at 3:30pm – hope to see you there!