Tewksbury star turns Paige on 600 mark

Makayla Paige went into yesterday’s Division 3 track and field championships not worrying a whole lot about defending her title, much less breaking the meet record in the 600. The Tewksbury sophomore only wanted to run a sturdy, fast time on the Reggie Lewis Center track.

Paige did what she set out to do and everything else just fell into place on a day when three long-standing records were rewritten.

The diminutive middle-distance ace was out clear at the gun and was never challenged as she dropped the meet record and easily defended her title with a scalding time of 1 minute, 32.33 seconds. Paige’s time bested the 1:32.88 set in 1999 by Stoneham’s Maura McCusker.

Paige seemed surprised by the record, but happy with her game plan of distancing herself from the field early.

“I wanted to run as fast as I could,” she said. “I was trying to win the break to the line. My goal was to PR. I’m hoping for a 1:31.”

Walpole’s Shane Grant was dominant on the track with wins in both the 1,000 (2:35.13) and mile (4:30.43) to pace the Rebels to the team title with 51 points. Walpole also picked up a win in the 4x800 as Grant, Ryan Stockwell, Kevin Taylor and Christoper Mackenzie combined for an 8:18.56.

The Rebels, who struggled earlier in the season with injuries and sickness, were at full strength to capture their first title since 1988.

“We set forth after the end of last year knowing we had a lot of guys coming back,” said coach Corey Coogan. “The goal at the beginning of the season was to win the Div. 3 title. We had a lot of injuries during the course of the season, but were able to get healthy at the right time and it all worked out today.”

The Hingham girls made their first victory since 2013 a convincing one as Libby Ranocha (600, 1:38.72), Lila Belsher (high jump, 5-2) and Victoria Goon (long jump, 16-11½) captured secondplace finishes. Hingham finished with a whopping 73 points after being in the mix the last 10 years.

“We’ve lost with as many as 80 points,” said coach Dawn Diedricksen. “If you look back we’ve won with as few as 50 and lost with as many as 80. Going in we thought we had about 58 points, but we totally outdid ourselves. We knew we had a shot and were favored. We knew Shepherd Hill, North Attleboro, Milton and Sharon would be there. The rankings say one thing but anything can happen.”

Shepherd Hill’s Bryan Santos continued his recordbreaking season on the infield by smashing the meet record in the 55 with a 6.39 in his qualifying heat. Santos came back a half-hour later to lower the mark to 6.34 and defeat Smith Charles of Milton (6.45).

The 55 hurdles also produced a record as Dave Peters of Stoughton surged to a 7.59 for an easy win.

“My lean at the end was very strong,” Peters said. “I really wanted the meet record and I did what I had to to get through the hurdles.”

Jada Johnson of Sharon soared to a meet record of 5-8 to capture a gold medal in the high jump.