GA finishes third at PAISAA’s

MALVERN >> After competing at the Inter-Ac League Championships at Episcopal Academy a week ago, Germantown Academy’s boys track team descended upon the Malvern Prep campus to take part in the Pennsylvania Independent Schools Athletic Association Championships. In total 17 teams competed at the meet, but the Patriots proved that they were one of the top groups.

Scoring a total of 82 points, GA secured a thirdplace finish at PAISAA’s. While they were not able to defend their title from a year ago, the Patriots bested the fourth-place team — Penn Charter — by 20 points, and narrowly missed second, falling by just four points.

“The boys really fought super well,” Head Coach Dion Lehman said. “To get a top-three finish is really noteworthy and I was impressed with the way they came out and competed.”

GA had four first-place finishes on the day, but had 11 top-six finishes total.

Robert DiDonato led the way with two of them, finishing atop the group in the 1600 and 3200. The sophomore proved he is one of the top distance runners in the area having ran 4:21.64 in the 1600 and 9:35.79 in the 3200. Matt Sandifer was not far behind, finishing second in the 3200 (9:47.24) and third in the 1600 (4:27.59).

Last weekend at league championships, Caleb Johnson ‘said he was a little disappointed in his 15-00 jump in the pole vault and that he was ready to jump high. He did just that at PAISAA’s, clearing 15-07.00, taking home first place and setting a new PAISAA record in the event. Johnson topped the second-place finisher by over three feet.

Rounding out the firstplace finishers from Germantown Acadmey was Ola Abinusawa. The senior won the league title in the shot put a week ago and added the PAISAA crown to his resume as well by throwing 56-00. The next closest throw traveled 52-04.50.

“We had a lot of energy coming in,” Abinusawa said. “The team tried our hardest and we all put up good marks. We all worked hard in practice and that showed.”

Abinusawa also tacked on a second-place finish in the discus with a 142-09.00 heave and a fifth-place finish in the javelin, throwing 132-8.00.

“We knew we had some chances of scoring in a lot of events — distance, pole vault, throws — so we knew coming in that that would be great,” Lehman said. “But we scored a lot of events in the sprints too. We had a lot of noteworthy performances across the board. I think it says a lot, they are a lot of really good teams here today.”

Lehman highlighted the 4x100 team, who “stepped up,” and took second place. He said that he thought they could send out a strong group and that the finish backed that up.

Kevin Lamb placed fourth in the 300m hurdles with a time of 41.79. The 4x400 team also took fourth, running 3:35.68.

For Media News Group