Month: January 2012

“Three” was the title I was hoping would be appropriate for the sports.priorfamily.org entry for Saturday’s MSTCA Division 1 State Relays (photos, Milesplit coverage, Results, Team Scores, Boston Globe article, Boston Herald article, Newton Track Blog, Newton Tab, Scans of articles).

As it turned out, the title worked, but I changed it to “Trifecta” as that was what the Boston Globe called Kayla’s accomplishments.

Why three?

Kayla for the first time competed in 3 events. The 3xLong Jump relay (where each jumper only gets 2 attempts and the total distance is added), the 4x50m shuttle hurdle relay, and the 4x50m dash. The expectations on her and her relays teammates were enormous. The message from J.T was they needed to take 1st or 2nd in all her 3 events to have a chance to win the meet — and they delivered — in style.

How did it turn out:

Not only was “Three” the sports.priorfamily title, its the Boston Globe’s headline! (“trifecta” being the 3xmeet records) :

Newton North Girls hit Trifecta

Each winter, the Newton North girls’ track team circles the MSTCA Relays on the schedule. The focus leading up to the ultimate team event on the schedule has often paid off, as it did yesterday at the Reggie Lewis Track Center, with the Tigers rolling to their third straight Division 1 championship.

“I’m ecstatic, to break three state records is absolutely phenomenal,’’ said Tigers coach Joe Tranchita of his team’s performance. “To come here and get the win and set records speaks volumes for their execution.’’

Newton North finished with 59 points, far ahead of Andover (36) and Weymouth (30).

The Tigers won five of the 10 events, three in record fashion. Junior Carla Forbes was prominently involved in three of those wins and two of the meet records. Forbes, Kayla Prior, and Kayla Wong set one in the long jump, combining to cover 49 feet 4 1/4 inches.

That same trio teamed up with Stephanie Brown to win the 4 x 50-yard shuttle dash in a meet-record 24.52 seconds.

“We knew we would have a good chance to win,’’ said Forbes, who also ran the anchor of the victorious 4 x 400 (4:03.74). “We didn’t come here with the mind-set to break records, we just wanted to try and do our best and hopefully take first.’’

The Tigers’ other record run came in the 4 x 50 shuttle hurdles, which was run in 29.11 by Wong, Brown, Prior, and Sonja Lehman.

“This is a huge meet for us every year because it is the one pure team meet and you really have to have a full range of depth, not just one or two superstars,’’ Tranchita said. “This is really about the team talent.’’

From the Boston Herald: Forbes Gives Newton N Highest Rating:

Newton North capped a thoroughly dominant team performance yesterday with its biggest star bringing down the Reggie Lewis Center in the final event of the Division 1 Relays.

Carla Forbes clocked a sterling anchor leg of 58.6 seconds in the 4×400 to give the squad a meet-closing victory. The team of Forbes, Meghan Bellerose, Maddie Nadeau and Isabella Reilly tore up the swift oval in 4:03.74, more than three seconds in front of runner-up Wachusett (4:06.94).

The Tigers captured their third consecutive team title with 59 points. Andover (36 points) was a distant second, followed by Weymouth (30).
Newton North set three meet records in the process. Stephanie Brown, Forbes, Kayla Prior and Kayla Wong combined to clock a 24.52 in the 4×50. Brown, Wong, Prior and Sonja Lehman took the 4×50 hurdles in 29.11. Forbes led the long jump crew with a mark of 18 feet, 3 inches, on the way to a relays-record 15.04 meters.

“I’m ecstatic, absolutely ecstatic,” Newton North coach Joe Tranchita said. “It was the seniors who really got the bulk of those records. This is a huge meet on our schedule every year.”

From http://ma.milesplit.com: MSTCA Division 1 Highlights

It was a record breaking day as the Newton North girls took home the team title and set three meet records in the process. The Tigers surpassed the previous best marks in the 4×50 Yard Relay (24.52), the 4×50 Yard Hurdles Relay (29.11), and the Long Jump (49’4.25) with Kayla Wong and Kayla Prior as part of all three record breaking teams. Steph Brown competed on the 4x50y dash relay and the 4x50y hurdles relay; both of which are new state records. Carla Forbes also competed on the dash relay and led the team in the long jump relay. She ended the day by anchoring the winning 4x400m relay, and the building erupted with cheers as Forbes received the baton and broke open a significant lead with her 58.6 split.

So back to the “Three”

• 3 Newton North School Records (3xLJ, 3×50 hurdles, 3×50 dash)
• 3 Gold Medals
• 30 of Newton’s 59 points
• 3rd consecutive team indoor title for the seniors (2010, 2011, 2012)
• 3 Meet Records
• 2 State Records (3×50 hurdles, 3×50 dash)

Newton won the meet with 59 points, with over half coming from Kayla’s relays. Several state records in this meet date back to the early 1980’s. The hurdle record was 10 years old. Breaking meet records in 3 of the meets 10 events in the span of 2 hours is just off the charts and a great way to close out her last high school indoor relay meet. Even Carla Forbes only has 2 meet records! I don’t think there is enough returning talent at North to threaten these next year, and once Carla is gone, they will stick at North if not the state for quite some time.

Here a youtube video of the races. Use this link to share with others rather than sending to sports.priorfamily:

http://youtu.be/hJkZBEiTM38

Long Jump
The relay format only allows for 2 jumps instead of the normal 3 so jumpers need to be on. The girls, jumping in the first of 4 flights, all hit good marks on their first attempts and locked down the gold before most jumper even started and drew within 10cm of the record. The amazing thing is that they bested the field by over 4 feet and accomplished this record all this while jumping over a foot short of their personal bests. Kayla actually jumped the closest of the three to her PR. Kayla and Co were disappointed about the last “2”, as their 49’4″ was just 2″ off the all-division state record. Kayla jumped 15′ 3.25″ for 6th of 45 jumpers and was only beaten by jumpers with 17’5+ PRs. Even though Carla Forbes’ 18′ jump powered the record, 3x Kayla’s jump would have still won the event by over a foot. Kayla Wong and Carla jumping last year with senior captain Amy Ren only totaled 47’5″, which yielded 2nd place. As a sophomore, she jumped with Carla and Amy to 45’9″ for the win, so this is almost a 4 ft improvement for the team from then.

Hurdles
Kayla only got her 3-step down in last two meets and the 4th hurdler only competed in the event for the first time last week. It wasn’t totally clear they would even enter the event seriously until then, with the potential to divert runners to the 4x200m relay.

Kayla took off on the 3rd leg in 2nd place with a safe start and charged forward into 1st and for Kayla Wong to power home on the final leg for the 29.11 record, 1.41 ahead of 2nd team. Kayla’s split of 7.27 was a half second faster than last year when they won in 29.88 and made the difference this year.

Similarly to the long jump, while Kayla Wong powered the record, assuming a 0.7s reaction time on the first leg, 4 “KPs” would run 7.97+3×7.27=29.78, which would beat last year’s winning North time and win this year by over half a second.

Dash
In the 4×50 Kayla took hand-off from Carla Forbes about even and held North in a tie for 1st on her leg and then Kayla Wong powered home again to a 24.52 time. This same team took third when Kayla was a sophomore to set the previous school record of 25.34. They went a full .8 seconds faster this time. Kayla didn’t run last year when the team DQed on a start. Kayla split 6.17 — the “4 Kayla” time here would be 25.38, just outside the previous school record from 2010 and good for a respectable 7th out of 38 teams in this meet.

It’s easy to for Kayla (and the press) to see the records as all about Carla and Kayla W, but these three records would not have happened without Kayla on her game.

With one state relay meet to go, Kayla’s cummulative relay title total rises to 8 (2010 indoor 3xLJ, outdoor 4x100hurdles, 2011 indoor 4×50 hurdles, outdoor 3xLJ, 3xTJ) and total points to 87, with the remaining 7 points coming from a 2009 4×50 hurdle B-team 6th and the 2010 4×50 bronze.

This meet provides the big upside of the Newton North situation. In the last two dual meets Kayla competed in 6 events, shutting out brookline in 3, Weymouth in 1, and only losing to 1 Weymouth athlete in the other 2 events, yet only took home 4 points for a 2nd and a 3rd in LJ due to the great teammates she has.

Go Tigers!