St John’s Prep boys and Lexington girls shone brightest at The Track at New Balance on Saturday afternoon with each claiming a Div. 1 state championship.
The Eagles showed up consistently throughout the whole meet competing with other strong teams like Brookline to claim the victory. Lexington’s girls came out of the gate strong and finished with an astonishing 114 points to take the championship win. This was 62 points ahead of Central Catholic and Newton North, who tied for second at 51 points.
St John’s Prep finished with 68 points, which was four points ahead of Brookline. The Eagles saw a first-place finish despite none of their runners or relay teams placing first in individual events. Although they came close in the 4×200 meter relay, but a ruled interference disqualified them.
St. John’s Prep coach Zachary Lanklow found that unfortunate, but he was really proud of his team overall.
“There’s a million things that went well today from our perspective,” Lanklow said.
Newton North took the 4×200 meter relay victory instead, with juniors Oliver Smith, William Balerna, Nuno Cabral and seniors George Rumkin and Logan Smith breaking a meet record with a time of 1:29:11.
Brookline saw individual wins in the 600-meter run by Harry Flint, the two-mile run by Theodore Butty, and the boys 4×800 relay. Brookline also won the 4×400 relay, breaking a meet record with a time of 3:23:51.
“I’ve run these races thousands of times in my head because I visualize them so much,” Flint said. “Last year, I came up short in a lot of my races… This year I took it all.”
Lexington boys had wins by senior Simon Tandeih in both the 55 hurdles and the long jump.
Lexington’s runaway victory on the girls side was powered by Amelia Whorton winning the mile run and the 1,000-meter run, Jane Conrad winning the two mile, Ainsley Cuthbertson winning the shot put and the 4×800 meter relay claiming first place.
Minutewomen coach Rebecca Trachsel and her girls were thrilled with the colossal win.
“We’ve been training all season for this specific meet and the girls were locked in and ready to go,” Trachsel said. “We couldn’t be happier.”
Newton North took after an impressive win in the 4×200 relay.
Central Catholic ended up tying Newton North for a runner-up finish with an individual win in the long jump by Avery Strickler.
Although it didn’t place, Natick fought hard and maintained third place for most of the meet. The RedHawks won three individual events, two of those wins ran by senior Chloe Elder. Elder won both the 300-meter dash and 600-meter run, breaking the meet record for the 600 with a time of 1:33:47.
“That was my goal going into today’s meet, so I’m pretty happy with my performance overall,” Elder said. “My teammates were supporting me and the competition I had, she was really sticking with me the whole race. That helped push me to the finish line and come out with the win.”
