Month: April 2010

Kayla sails to 16’4 1/2″ Long Jump — Qualifies for States

Kayla improved her outdoor personal best by almost a foot, jumping 16’4.5″ in Newton’s win over Milton Thursday (results, news article).   This put her well past the 15′ 9″ state qualifying standard and adds to her previous 100m hurdle qualifier.    This mark ranks her 11th in the 12-school Bay State league.   The Milton long jump pit appears to be quite “favorable” to PRs with 10 of the 13 top league marks being logged there and all Newton jumpers hitting PRs.   Kayla’s teammate Carla leaped to the #2 triple jump in the nation at 41 8″ and a near national freshman record.

Kayla takes 100m and 4x100m vs. Braintree

Kayla took home her first varsity win today with a 1st place in 100m in 13.5  as Newton defeated Braintree 93.5-37.5 (results) in the cold (sub 50F) and rain. She also led off the winning 4x100m relay that clocked a 51.2.   On the varsity level, of the 62 MIAA schools reporting, only Newton North, Newton South, and Sharon have faster 4x100m times logged in Athletic.net.

The 4×100 relay had  two other sophomores and a freshman. To put their  performance in context, consider that 28 teams entered last weekend’s Rt. 128 frosh-soph meet at Notre Dame and 53.1 won. That meet’s record is 52.01.  There is also an annual “large-schools” state-wide frosh/soph meet this Saturday where the “state” frosh/soph record is 51.84.  Newton will skip that meet and focus on the Weston Invitational night meet under the lights (2009 results) where this squad would likely be seeded ~3rd-4th.  They also have a dual meet Thursday in Milton.

Jared’s Mass Premier Premier

Jared had his first game today playing for the Mass Premier Knights U13 team. This is a 1st tier team 1 age-group above his U12 level that Jared was invited to join last week. He more than held his own with 6 shots on goal.

[flashvideo bufferlength=1 file=http://video.priorfamily.org/sports/jrp/2010/mps_knights_4252010_F8%20480p%20(16×9).flv image=http://video.priorfamily.org/sports/jrp/2010/mps_knights_4252010-2.jpg /]

Kayla vaults

Kayla entered her first pole vault competition today. She cleared 6ft. She trained for this on her own at a club outside of the high school team. She was hoping for more, but a good start!

[flashvideo bufferlength=1 width=800 height=450 file=http://video.priorfamily.org/sports/kgp/2010/vault_4242010-6ft_F8%20480p%20(16×9).flv image=http://video.priorfamily.org/sports/kgp/2010/vault-4242010.jpg /]

Kayla and Dad visit UCONN

Kayla and Dad went to UCONN to catch the tail end of the Women’s team competing in the UConn Select Invite and the beginning of the men’s team meet against Albany (“The Dog Fight“). Kayla got to chat with Greg Roy, the UCONN men’s coach. He knew Newton North as a top program and also knows her pole vault coach Brenner Abbott, who coaches at Northeastern.

We got to sample some UConn dairy bar ice cream and pick up some UConn gear for her and Jared at the coop. We also visited Gampel, the pool, the chemical engineering department, and the Husky Heritage Sports Museum where we found a plaque with both Dad and Rebecca Lobo on it — I figured Gampy would appreciate that.

Hurray — Dad gets ink and a photo on sports.priorfamily.org!

From 2010-04
From 2010-04

I snagged this frame from a UConn video of the meet (us in lower right):

From 2010-04

Kayla speeds to 100m dash and hurdles PRs — qualifies for States

Kayla qualified for the state championships with a 17.3 100m hurdles personal best today for 5th place as Newton topped league rival Weymouth (results, newspaper article). She also dropped her 100m dash personal best by a huge 0.9 seconds with a 4th place 13.2 (beating all Weymouth runners) and just missed the state championship qualifying time of 13.1 (I had her in 13.05). Her freshman best was 14.1. She also long jumped 15’1″ for 6th.

[sorry for the cell phone video quality. I figured something was better than nothing. Kayla is 2nd runner from left and surges to 2nd in heat at end.]
[flashvideo bufferlength=1 width=800 height=450 file=http://video.priorfamily.org/sports/kgp/2010/weymouthapr2010_F8%20360p%20(4×3).flv /]

For the state-wide performances listed in athletic.net, she ranks 40th (out of 400 competitors) in 100m, 35th out of 165 hurdlers, and 36th out of 196 long jumpers. In the 12-school Bay State league that Newton North is part of, she currently ranks 13th in both the hurdles and dash and 17th in long jump.