Weston girls, Littleton boys repeat as state champs
For all the star power Norton provided throughout the MIAA Div. 4 girls indoor track and field championships Thursday night at the Reggie Lewis Center, Weston flexed its own strength at the right time to repeat its state title.
After Shea Pobelski, Ali Murphy and Jillian Strynar each dominated their individual events to give the Lancers a lead that held most of the night, the Wildcats took the relays by storm with a clean sweep of the three final races to shoot into the top spot. Wins in the 800-meter (1:47.72), 3,200-meter (10:18.35) and 1,600-meter (4:09.78) relays combined with two other event wins and two more top-three finishes for a firstplace score of 71 points, all despite missing a key longdistance runner.
Norton tested Weston by finishing second in the final relay, taking second overall (67 points) while Lunenburg (37 points) finished third.
“I’ve been sweating all day, but it’s good, positive, happy energy,” said Weston head coach Jason Montrose. “It’s awesome, the girls really worked hard for this. … Everything had to go completely right if you leave it up to the relays. We were able to pull it off, put it together, which was amazing.”
Leading up to the relays, Murphy won the 300-meter run (40.71 seconds) and Jillian Strynar set a meet record with a win in the 55-meter dash (7.17 seconds). Each finished second behind one another in the two races, too, pairing well with Pobelski’s double-win in the one-mile run (5:16.73) and 1,000-meter run (3:04.54).
Weston’s Sloan Hinton was a triple-winner, though, running in two relays and earning the 600-meter run (1:40.23) crown. Olivia Jackson won the twomile run (11:41.68), Kaitlyn Ewald took second in the long jump (16-07.50) and the 300-meter run (42.23), and Analeise Shact finished fourth in the 1,000-meter run (3:10.94) within a wellbalanced effort.
South Hadley’s Emma Sanford made a case for meet MVP. She scored all but one of the team’s 27 points with wins in the long jump (17-04.75) and 55-meter hurdles (8.54), and took third in the high jump (500.00).
It’s not too often that a team breaks a meet record in a relay but doesn’t win the event, as the Littleton boys team saw its new record in the 800-meter relay (1:33.93) snapped by Amesbury (1:33.36) in the next heat just a few minutes later. But that wouldn’t weigh down the Tigers
even a smidge, utilizing a dominant performance of first-place finishes in four events to repeat as Div. 5 state champions.
Tyler Castillo played a big role, breaking school records in that secondplace 800-meter relay and through his win in the 55-meter run (6.54 seconds). He paired with double-wins from Timothy Rank and Bona Bradshaw to help Littleton to 64.5 points, overcoming a disqualification in a relay that the team used for extra motivation.
Ipswich finished second with 49.5 points behind Keith Townsend’s doublewin in the 55-meter hurdles (8.17) and high jump (6-04.00), while Amesbury claimed third with 34 points.
“It’s unbelievable, I’m so happy … it’s a family atmosphere,” said Littleton head coach Casey Kaldenberg. “It’s just so great to see these kids succeed. … All the boys knew the assignment, really.”
Rank finished first in the one-mile run (4:24.49) and Bradshaw took the two-mile run (10:02.30) before teaming up within the 3,200-meter relay’s title finish (8:26.50). Colin Hansen delivered a win in the 600-meter run (1:22.87) for Ipswich, as well as a silver medal performance in the 300-meter run (35.53).