Across the state of Massachusetts 2052 girls contested the long jump during the 2012 indoor season. When all was said and done, only 12 athletes from other schools finished ahead of Kayla in the State Open Championship held Sunday. Kayla improved on her 19th seed to place 15th with a jump of 15’11.25″. It would taken a big PR 16’11” jump to score in the meet, and Kayla gave her all on her last attempt toward that but fouled by a hair. She completes the season with a PR of 16’8″ ranked 23th in the state and 57th in New England. Teammate Carla Forbes won the competition in a state record 20’1.25″, now ranked #3 in the USA.
Kayla organized an impromptu combined girls/boys team dinner at our house the night before, and we didn’t screw it up, as both the Newton North girls and boys team brought home team titles (photos, milesplit coverage). The boys did it in spectacular fashion, being counted out in 6th place going into the relays. First they took third in the 4x200m and then followed with a dramatic 4x400m win to tie for win with Mansfield. Jared has to fill a slot in one of these!
Kayla’s concludes her indoor track high school career next week, contesting for the National Championship in the 4x55m shuttle hurdle relay at the Armory in New York City on March 10th.
Nanny and Papa journeyed 6 hours for the 2nd meet in a row to support Kayla and see the competition.
Kayla soared 16′ 7″ on her first attempt — her 2nd longest all-time performance –to place 6th in the Massachusetts Division 1 state championships (photos). She came in seeded 5th based on her big PR last week of 16’8″, but would have only been seeded 12th based on her previous season best of 16’1.75″.
Carla Forbes won in a meet record, USA #4 19’9” on her final attempt.
Newton scored an amazing 20 points in the event placing athletes 1st, 4th, 6th, and 7th and taking half the slots in the 8-person final. The team jumping depth in the event became as big a news as Carla’s record, with the Globe, Herald, the Newton track blog, The Newton Tab, and Milesplit mentioning her and her teammates accomplishment in their meet summaries. That’s about as newsworthy a 6th place as they come!
Only three athletes from the other 47 schools attending got in ahead of her, with one being the #2 hurdler in New England from Somerville.
Kayla was Newton’s 6th highest point scorer, contributing 3 points to Newton’s 66-43.5 victory over Lincoln Sudbury as well as key early confidence-building momentum for team, which trailed until the final relays started running. She was one of only 6 Newton athletes to score in individual events and one of only 3 to compete in two individual events (She also ran the 55m hurdles in 9.53 for 24th, matching her incoming seed).
Note that without Carla’s point contribution (winning LJ, 55m, and anchoring 4x400m), Newton would still have barely won, with Kayla’s hypothetical 4 points moving up to 5th providing the margin over Lincoln-Sudbury.
Kayla gets her “Metal”
Kayla performance qualified to return to the State Open next week as 19th seed in the state-wide meet which brings together the top 24 competitors from the divisional meets. Nanny and Papa made the long trek to Boston to support Kayla and see her compete (sorry no photo). Thanks Nanny and Papa!’
The metal-ists:
From the globe:
Junior standout Carla Forbes won the long jump with a meet record of 19 feet 9 inches, and teammates Kayla Wong (16-10 3/4) and Kayla Prior (16-7) took fourth and sixth place, respectively.
From the Herald:
Almost as stunning as Forbes’ effort was Newton North putting four jumpers on the medal stand in a thorough domination of the event.
From Milesplit:
As impressive as Forbes’ jump was, it was almost overshadowed by the fact that Newton North put four athletes in scoring positions. In addition to Forbes and Wong, Kayla Prior finished 6th (16’7â€) and Maeve Larkin was 7th (16’5.75â€). All totaled, Newton North walked away with 20 points in the event!
From the Tab:
The win was the second of the day for Forbes, who also defended her long jump title with a meet-record leap of 19 feet, 9 inches. That effort erased Arantxa King’s 2007 mark of 19-6½. The Tigers were thoroughly dominant in the event with four athletes taking home medals.
Senior Kayla Wong was a strong fourth in 16-10¾, while senior Kayla Prior took sixth (16-7) and junior Maeve Larkin was seventh (16-5¾). Newton South junior Kyra Visnick was eighth with a 16-2-¾ leap.
North picked up a whopping 20 points with that one event and the Tigers never let up as they captured their third consecutive team title with 66 points. Joe Tranchita’s squad scored in eight of 12 events to easily defeat Lincoln-Sudbury (43.5) and Acton-Boxboro (36).
Here is a slideshow of the long jump competition:
The winning seniors:
The winning team:
Kayla was featured in a photo gallery on the Boston Globe website on State Champions:
From a photographer friend. I bought the original as a download.
Jared entered 3 events yesterday in the Northeast indoor classic (photos, results). The meet included athletes from around the Northeast and Canada. Jared competed in the long jump, 200m, and 55m dash.
The 200m dash was run in unseeded heats, with place among the 36 entrants determined by electronic timing. Jared won his heat and placed 5th overall, just missing out on 2nd by 0.32 (see youtube video below).
In the 55m dash, Jared won his trial heat to qualify 3rd in the field of 21 with a time of 7.32. He then improved his speed in the final (thee hours later) with a 7.18 3rd place, holding off 4th place by a photo finish 0.001 margin. Ahead of him was the Junior Olympic Northeast 100m champ (1st) and the New England 100m champ (2nd) (results).
In the long jump he faced a strong field of 26 jumpers, and bested all but the Northeast Junior Olympic champ from New York with a personal best jump of 17′ 9.25″ for 2nd (results). He nipped the 3rd place jumper by 1″. Check out (photos of competitors in long jump).
Jared has competed in this meet twice before. Three years ago, at age 11, he ran the 55m dash in 8.78 and the 200m in 32.34 (results). Five years ago in 2007, at age 9, he ran his first ever meet at this meet at MIT, running the 55m in 9.06 (13th of 24) and the 400m in 1:23 for 9th of 15 (results).
For calibration, Jared’s marks would place him 6th in the long jump and 10th in the 55m in the NVL championships. Among the 470 freshman boys competing this year in New England, he would rank 28th in the long jump. Among 1561 freshman competing in 55m dash, he would rank 35th. Among the 155 freshman in the Bay State league, he’s 0.01 out of 1st in the 55m.
Kayla had a great Bay State Championship meet Wednesday (Tab Article, photos, jump sequences, results). She came in ranked 9th in the league in the long jump. After an opening foul, she soared 16′ 8″ for an all-time PR, raising her indoor PR by over a half a foot. She followed up with a 16’7″ and advanced to the finals. She placed 5th in the competition behind teammates Carla Forbes and Kayla Wong, with just 2 athletes from the remaining 11 schools getting in ahead of her. Maeve Larkin placed 7th to put 4 Newton athletes in the top 7. Kayla now ranks 20th state-wide in the long jump and 49th in New England.
In the 55m hurdles, she hit her 5th straight personal best, dropping her time from 9.47 to 9.32 for a surprise advance to the finals where she placed 8th with a 9.35. She came in seeded 14th in the league and upset several athletes with faster times. Newton advanced 4 athletes to the 8-person hurdle final! See the picture sequence of the hurdle race.
As far as I can tell, Kayla was one of only 4 athletes to place in top 8 in two events, with the other three being Carla, Kayla W, and Melissa Darling of Weymouth.
From a Connecticut perspective, she ranks 11th in Long jump and would place 4th in Class LL meet and be 4th seed in the Class L meet.The hurdle mark would rank her 22nd in CT. Both long jump and 55m hurdles performance would win the NVL meet in each event.
Remember back in 2009 when Kayla was spotted volunteering on infield (photo below) during the ESPN-HD broadcast of New Balance Indoor Grand Prix (formerly Boston indoor games)? Now in 2012 Jared was on the track in front of a sold out Reggie Lewis crowd of 4000 people.
After some strong encouragement from his big sister, Jared went out for the Waltham Track club indoor team and made the cut to run one of the two boy legs on Watham TC’s co-ed 4x200m relay, which was the 2nd event of Saturday night’s New Balance Grand Prix. Jared ran the lead off leg in a sizzling 26.3 (running extra distance on first turn in lane 3 due to traffic) and hit his goal of getting in ahead of the 4-time defending champions the Cambridge Jets. Unfortunately tough teams turned up from Rhode Island and Boston, with the Rhode Island lead-off being the kid the New England Junior Olympic 100m champion. Jared brought Waltham in at 3rd place, which they held onto. Here is a photo sequence of the 4x200m race..
Here is the team walking out onto the track with #2 all-time pole vaulter Jenn Suhr in the foreground:
Competitors come off the 1st corner:
Back stretch:
2nd corner:
Home stretch:
Relay handoff (shot off the Jumbotron):
Warm down:
Because the meet only allowed two roving photographers on the infield, and most of the professionals were in a pen at the finish line, Dad got one of the few still sequences of Jenn Suhr 16′ American Record. Sports Illustrated hasn’t called back yet though and Boston sports editors seem distracted by something today. Here is the youtube version. Here are other general photos of the meet.
Jenn Suhr inverted on way to 16′ American Record:
Kayla has worked this meet for 4 years as a volunteer in various limited roles, but this year had the responsibility along with Carla Forbes of stringing and holding the finish line tape for each race, which reportedly got her on ESPN2 today.
Kayla closed out her high school indoor dual meet career with a win over Natick (results, photos).
Kayla jumped 16′ for 4th in the long jump, with only Natick star Laurie Femmel besting her from among the 11 other Bay State league schools competing. In the 55m hurdles, Kayla PR-ed for the 4th straight meet in a row, running 9.47 for a tight 3rd place against Natick and 7th overall in the league (see photo sequence).
The league individual championship meet is next Wednesday, followed by the Division 1 State meet on Sunday February 19th, where Kayla has qualified for the long jump and hurdles. The top 4 in the four divisional meets plus the next 12 best performances advance to the state open on Sunday 2/26. After that, Kayla and her record-setting hurdle relay teammates (with Carla added) will travel to NYC to compete for the Indoor National Championship on March 10th.
