Category: Jared Track

Jared triple winner in Newton All-City Meet — Leaps to USA #3 20′ 4.25″

Jared won the long jump, 100m, and 4x100m relay at the Newton All-City Track Championship on Wednesday (photos). He was runner up in these events as a 7th grader.

The big highlight was upping his personal best by almost a foot with a 20′ 4.25″ leap that ranks 3rd in the USA for middle schoolers. He defeated 2nd place by well over 2 feet.


Take-off on his 20′ 4.25″ jump:

Jared’s coach congratulates him:

Landing his 3rd jump:

The Newton South pit is a bit recessed, which adds several inches to the jump, but for an apples-to-apples comparison, the Massachusetts large-school freshman/sophmore meet was held at South as well and in that competition of the 45 best underclassmen in the state, Jared would have placed 4th as an 8th grader.

Jared also won the 100m in a time of 11.8 and the 4x100m relay in 49.?.

Gampy was able to catch the first 2 events before we headed over to Kayla’s graduation ceremony.

Jared ups long jump PR to 19’6″

Jared jumped 19’6″ this evening at the weekly Waltham Track Club track meet. He also had a 19’8″ foul. This ups his nominal National middle school ranking on athletic.net to 15th out of over 14,000 logged athletes and meets the 19’1″ entry guideline for the intermediate boys (born 1996-1997, age 15-16) National Youth Outdoor Championships in Arlington Texas in July. Kayla has already made the 16’10” mark for young woman as well.

In New England, this mark would rank him 14th of 693 high school freshman this season.

Jared runs personal best 11.6 in 100m vs. Watertown

Jared continued his undefeated middle school season winning the 100m, long jump and 4x100m against Watertown. He has previous won these events in meets against all the Newton middle schools (Bigelow, Oak Hill, Brown) as well in earlier meets on the Day grass track. His time of 11.6 in the 100m (11.84c) ranks 82 of 16,000 nationwide results posted on athletic.net. He also had his 2nd best long jump of his career jumping 17’11 3/4″ and anchored the 4x100m relay team to a 50.5(?) win.

Jared soares to personal best 18’6″ in long jump

While Kayla was busy taking home long jump silver and 4x100m gold at the Bay State Conference Championships, Jared was competing in an intersquad track meet back in Waltham with the Waltham Track club. As Kayla made her way into the finals, Lisa texted me the news that Jared has improved his personal best by 9″, hitting 18’6″ on the 1st attempt. This mark ranks him 69th in the nation among over 13,500 reported middle school results on athletic.net.

He also set a personal bests of 11.8 in the 100m dash and of 25.2 in the 200m dash.

File Photo:

Jared undefeated in middle school track competitions

Jared has completed dual meets against the three Newton middle schools (Brown, Oak Hill, and Day) and is undefeated in his events (100m, long jump, and 4x200m relay) and had led his team to an undefeated season thus far. He jumped 17’2″ in the uphill Day pit and ran 11.3 for 100 yards over grass.

Here is a photo gallery of their Oak Hill meet.

Here is a photo gallery of their meet against Brown.

He will compete in the All-city track meet on May 31st.

Jared competes in 2012 Northeast Indoor Classic

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.

personal best long jump:

hi mom!

55m dash trial heat:

55m dash finish:

200m race video:

2012 New Balance Indoor Grand Prix

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 and Carla with their tape:

David Oliver winning the 60m Hurdles:

Kayla on TV in earlier meet:

Meet Website screen shot:

Priors take home 3 medals at USATF Region 1 Junior Olympic Championships

The Prior family traveled to RPI in Troy, NY via Woobury and Ithaca to compete in the Region 1 USATF Junior Olympics (photos, results). There are 16 regions around the country with the top 5 in each event qualifying to advance to the national championships in Kansas at the end of the month. Jared picked up a silver in the long jump and the bronze in the 100m while Kayla took the bronze in the triple jump. This meet brought together competitors from NY, CT, MA, RI, NH, VT, and ME. Jared will be in camp and Kayla packing for Tanzania so we’ll need to pass on the nationals this year.

Jared jumped 17’3.5″ off his right foot in the LJ (a “wrong” foot PR) and ran 12.60 FAT in the 100m, improving on his 12.77 in the NE meet and the semis. Kayla tripled jumped 30’6″, which was not bad considering her training the past 3 week consisted of lying in bed watching ugly betty on netflix. Jared got in two jumps before the 100m while Kayla checked him in (a foul and a right foot 17′.5″) and passed his third followed by 3 jumps in the finals, with his 17’3.5″ coming on his last jump.

Jared jumps to 11th in 2011 US Track and Field Youth National Championship

Jared jumped 16′ .25″ to place 11th in the 2011 USATF Youth Nationals in Myrtle Beach, SC.

Jared and Dad got up at 3:45am Saturday morning after 3 hours of sleep to head to Myrtle Beach for the USATF Youth Nationals at Doug Shaw stadium. The Long Jump was at 8am Sunday (photos, results, Meet Coverage Link, Meet Home Page).

This was only the 5th time Jared has competed in long jump on a real runway and he had to sort out his steps on his own without a coach. He got in three legal jumps, but they were about a foot behind the take-off line. He missed the finals and podium by just 4″. A PR would have moved him down to 5th, but he improved from his seeding before the meet of ~13th. The other more experienced jumpers in the field were quite talented and had similar take-off problems.

It was quite an experience to compete against some of the best jumpers from across the country and to see how top end professional track meets are run. Our goal was to use this as preparation for future meets. The long jump had eight uniformed officials running the event, including someone manning a wind speed guage for each jump to allow for official records to be set.

We had a lot of fun in our two days in Myrtle Beach with trips to the beach, go-carts, water park, and several movies. The weather was a sweltering 90F.

Athletes march out of check in area to the field:

Warm ups:

One of the top 3 jumpers:

1st Jump (see photo sequence)

2nd jump:

[flashvideo bufferlength=10 width=800 height=450 file=http://video.priorfamily.org/sports/jrp/2011/20110703-MVI_7828_MP4%20360p%20(16×9).mp4 /]

I didn’t watch the viewfinder for 2nd jump video abover and didn’t take pictures of third jump. You can’t give athletes feedback on their take-off mark based on video/photos so I needed to be careful not to get him DQ-ed.

Kayla’s teammate Carla Forbes had been at the stadium earlier in the week winning the triple jump at the world youth championship trials and making the US world team. We saw the results posted as we arrived in the stadium on Saturday.

2011 New England Junior Olympic Track & Field Championships

The Prior family took home four medals (a gold and three bronze) from the 2011 New England Junior Olympic Track Championships held at Fitchburg State University on 6/18 (photos, results, meet info). This is only the 2nd time they have competed together in same meet.

Kayla started the day by jumping to 3rd in both the long and triple jumps to pick up two bronze medals and two berths to the region 1 meet. This was the final track meet that Kayla’s infected tonsils will be coming along for the ride.

In the afternoon, Jared advanced to the 100m finals, winning his trials heat in the 2nd fastest time overall (12.76 FAT) and then matched it in the final (12.77 FAT) for 3rd place. Kayla was on the infield before the race teaching him how to start from a crouch position.

After baking on the sunny infield for a couple of hours waiting for the 100m trials and finals and completing those two races, Jared headed to the Long Jump pit to face a field of 16 jumpers. He struggling with his steps a bit in warm ups, but lead off with a safe 5.19m (17’1/4″) jump with plenty of room behind the board. After two strong looking fouls, he finished off with a 5.02m (16’5 1/2″) jump. His opening jump outdistanced the field by over 7 inches to earn him the title of 2011 New England Junior Olympic Long Jump Champion (footnote: Maine and Connecticut have separate meets but he out distanced those winners as well) in the 1997-1998 Youth division. This mark would have also won the Massachusetts Middle School Championship last week (only Brown middle school, based on winning the all-city meet, represented Newton at that meet).

The top six places from this meet advance to the “Northeast” Region 1 championship , (entries) at RPI in Troy, New York on July 9th (Jared) and 10th (Kayla). Kayla and Jared advance in all their 4 events. Region 1 combines NY, CT, RI, MA, VT, ME, NH, and NY. The top 5 from each of the 16 regions advance to the National Championship at Wichata State University in Wichita, Kansas.

Jared’s long jump PR from his middle school season (17’5″, 5.31m) is close enough to the 5.33m guideline to qualify him for the Youth Outdoor Track and Field Championships in Myrtle Beach (info, entries) so Dad and Jared will do an overnight trip down there to compete on July 3rd. His PR would place 10th last year as would Kayla’s LJ PR (but she will be recuperating that week).