NA boys edge field
Wakefield girls also bring home title
EASTON — The photo finishes at any track meet draw attention, but the field events are often where the winner is decided.
div. 3 state relays
Thanks to the efforts of its shot put teams, North Attleboro’s boys track program made history Sunday afternoon, and did so in dramatic fashion.
Brodie Clemente, Josh Beckett and Mark Etienvre combined for a winning distance of 45.21 meters, while the Rocketeers ‘B’ squad of Connor Belanger, Jace Delaney and Evan Carlson took third place (33.68 meters) in the same event, catapulting North Attleboro to the MSTCA Div. 3 boys track relay title at Oliver Ames High School.
“I talked to them about how hard it is to be champions a lot,” North Attleboro coach Scott Holster said of his group. “How respect has to come first. They’ve grown a lot, and I think this is the first step towards them continuing in that same growth.”
North Attleboro accumulated 56 team points to capture the crown.
Clemente, Beckett and Etienvre combined to place first in the discus throw relay (111.05 meters) as well. The Rocketeers also received a boost from their javelin throw relay team of Belanger, Mason Briggs and Stephen Doyon as they combined for a winning distance of 124.63 meters.
After all the races came to a halt on the track, officials, coaches and students all turned their attention to the field off to the side, where the shot put and javelin competitions were taking place.
As he and his fellow coaches waited, Holster wasn’t fully certain as to whether his group could mathematically pull off a rally. When the final results were tallied, North Attleboro edged Wakefield by one point in the standings for the title. The Rocketeers’ ‘B’ team in the shot put collected six points by placing, which ended up deciding the meet.
“We weren’t sure,” Holster said. “Honestly, Wakefield was so strong in the running all day. That second shot put team were heroes. That was the six points that gave us the one point to put us over the top.”
Warriors teams didn’t leave Easton empty-handed, necessarily, as Wakefield captured the girls championship with 60 total points, besting second-place Walpole for the hardware.
“It’s absolutely amazing,” said Wakefield coach Karen Barrett. “It was a great team effort. Everybody went a million percent, and we came out on top. I give a lot of credit to everybody here, but I was very happy with the outcome.”
The Warriors were carried all day long by senior Sammy Seabury, who anchored the Warriors to a victory in the sprint medley relay (4:21.47), a second-place finish in the distance medley relay (13:00.82), and a fourth place in the 4x400 meters (4:19.86).
Wakefield also won the long jump behind the trio of Ashlee Purcell, Gabriella Minasian and Maddy Seabury, combining for a distance of 13.84 meters.
Multiple individual benchmarks were set at Oliver Ames Sunday. Ironically, both marks were shattered in the same event — the high jump. The Westwood boys group of Mark Homsy, Vijay Sherring and Quinn O’Brien set a record distance of 17-05 feet. Meanwhile, the Melrose girls also beat the previous mark in the girls’ competition, as Scarlett Timm, Taylor Pesce and Julia McAree combined for a distance of 14-05 feet.