Massachusetts State Middle School Championships

The 2nd annual Massachusetts Middle School Championships were held Saturday June 9th at the University of Massachusett Lowell, bringing together the top middle school track programs from across the state (results, Newton Sports Photography coverage, family photos). There was a two-event per athlete and 3 entry/team/event limits, so Jared did the Long Jump and the 4x100m relay letting his teammates run the 100m.

A field of 48 athletes completed in the long jump with Jared winning the event and breaking the meet record by over 2 feet with 19′ 2″ jump. Jared bested 2nd place by 5.5″ and 3rd by a foot (see jump sequences). This was Jared’s 3rd best outing (after the 20’4.25″ at all-city meet and a 19’6″ at a Waltham TC practice meet), yet it still ranks 31st nationally among 14,000 middle school jumpers.

Jared land a 19’2″ jump on his third attempt.

Here is a video sequence of Jared’s jumps. His best jumps were his 3rd (19’2″) and 5th (19’0″):

In the 4x100m, the first three runners split 13.74, 12.31, and 12.39. Jared brought home the baton in a blazing 10.82, for his 2nd state championship and meet record of the day (49.26), besting runner up Jonas Clarke MS of Lexington by 1.25 seconds. Usain Bolt anchors in 8.71, so he still has some work to do :-). The open 100m was won in 12.50, so without an entry limit Jared would likely have won that event as well (11.84c personal best).

Jared was one of only 3 athletes (and only boy) at the meet to win 2 events.

Youtube video of 4x100m:

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.

Kayla anchors Newton North to State Open 4x100m Silver

Kayla concluded her high school track career on the eve of her graduation with a spectacular 4x100m anchor leg to bring Newton North home in 2nd place to powerhouse relay Brockton in the Mass State Open meet, defeating the top 23 teams in the state that advanced from the divisional championships (results, photos, milesplit coverage, Boston Globe, Newton Tab).

She got the baton trailing eventual winner Brockton and had a slight lead on a charging field of the six fastest teams in the stat and held them all off. The relay team’s 8 points clinched North’s third consecutive state open title.

From Milesplit article: “Runner-up was a theme for Newton at this meet, as they would get their 4th of those in the 4×100 (49.78), with Carla Forbes running a brilliant 3rd leg to get the stick to senior Kayla Prior, who wrapped it up beautifully. Brockton won the event they have dominated all year (48.94), giving Clerveaux another gold medal around her neck.”

The Newton Tab (North Girls Track Team Dances to third straight title) describes the meet postponement saga that almost had this meet conflicting with the Prom.

About 0.3 seconds after above photo was taken Kayla and I had a nice hug to celebrate at the finish line. I was so glad we had the chance to celebrate and say goodbye to 4 years of track together. I will miss it.

From tracktalk.net:


“rumor was the NN girls were skipping meet for Prom. .
No truth to this. Told by Coach Martin and Mo that all girls would have been present, and that a very elaborate bussing schedule was being put together by JT and some senior parents. I watched Kayla Prior finish the 4×100 and be greeted by her dad/ Newton Sports Photography’s own- something tells me she wasn’t going to miss the opportunity for that moment.

I’m more impressed with how they did given that the meet was the day AFTER the prom!”

The North girls ended up with the 8th fastest time in New England for the year. In the long jump, Kayla ended up as the 17th ranked long jumper in the state and 32nd in New England.

The runner-up Wachusett team of 4 girls, with 3 state open championships among them, seemed most excited that evening to meet their favorite blogger:

Newton North principal Jenn Price made the 1 hour drive out to Fitchburg to support the team, posing here with their third consecutive state open trophy:

Newton North Sportsmanship Award

“This athlete has consistently exhibited the qualities that are the foundation of good sportsmanship,

which are respect for the abilities of others in relation to herself,

an appreciation for the opportunities presented to her,

and a graciousness in both failure and success.

Her understanding and appreciation of these principles have driven her to be

the best that she can and to get the most out of her abilities,

both as an athlete and as a person.

This year’s team sportsmanship award goes to Kayla Prior…”.

After varsity letters are handed out to letter winners, one award (the sportsmanship award) is presented to a member of each team. We are so proud and happy for Kayla for receiving this well-deserved honor.

At the end of the evening, Newton North Principal Jennifer Price presented Kayla with a senior award for accumulating nine varsity letters over her career. Kayla had set a goal for herself to achieve this milestone way back in the fall of her freshman year.

Click here for photo gallery and youtube video.

The season isn’t over — State Open Saturday Monday Tuesday!

Kayla named to 2012 Bay State Conference All-Star Team

The members of the 2012 Outdoor Track Bay State All-Star Team were announced this morning and the list included KP!! While this may be not surprise to folks reading sports.priorfamily, where she is an all-star every day, this is quite an individual honor to achieve in her final season. The team of 28 athletes selected from the twelve Bay State schools is voted on by all the league coaches and represents the top athletes across the sport’s 14 individual events.

Kayla earned the honor in a season where she consistently ranked as the #2 long jumper behind Carla Forbes and cemented it with a clutch 2nd place finish in the league championships. She also medaled in the elite Weston Twilight Invitational, the Coaches Invitational, and the D1 championships. For good measure she anchored the Newton North 4x100m relay to an undefeated league season with 5 league meet victories and hit state qualifying marks in the long jump, triple jump, 100m, 100m hurdles, and 4x100m relay. She earning 47 team points across the dual meet season and broke the school and state meet record in the 3 x triple jump relay. North had an unprecedented 7 athletes named to the team including Carla Forbes (LJ/TJ), Kayla Wong (hurdles), Ali Hurwitz (400 hurdles, TJ), Megan Bellerose (400m/800m), Lucia Grigoli (Disc, HJ), and Evie Heffernan (mile).

The honor will be announced in the Boston Globe next month when the Massachusetts all-scholastic team is named and at Newton North Athletic Awards night on Tuesday where Kayla will receive a special plaque for earning 9 varsity letters over the course of her high school career.


The full list of winners from the Boston Herald:

BAY STATE CONFERENCE Rhyana Freeman, Amanda Jew (Brookline); Ellen Masalsky (Dedham); Molly Dempsey (Milton); Liz Burns, Danielle Mitchell, Hanna Carson (Natick); Carla Forbes, Meghan Bellerose, Lucia Grigoli, Kayla Wong, Allie Hurwitz, Kayla Prior, Evie Heffernan (Newton North); Amy Duggan (Norwood); Gina Conti, Erin McCarthy, Maddy Shea (Walpole); Carly Daniel, Kara Ganley, Emily Ryan, Carlijn Wagenaar (Wellesley); Melissa Darling, Jen Kimball, Julie Tevenan.

Kayla Anchors Newton North 4x100m relay to 3rd fastest time in Massachusetts in D1 State Championships

Kayla sped home in a blazing 12.20 split to anchor the Newton North 4x100m relay team to 49.63 3rd place at the Eastern Massachusetts Division 1 Championships (results, milesplit coverage, photos) on Saturday May 27th. The team of Kayla Wong, Steph Brown, Carla Forbes, and Kayla improved their season’s best by 0.8 to post the third fastest time run in Massachusetts this year (out of 738 teams) and the 7th fastest time in New England (out of 1800 teams) to advance to the state open final. This is likely the 2nd fastest time run in Newton’s history. Kayla also placed 7th in the long jump to contribute 8 of Newton’s 95.5 points posted to win the team title.

Here is a youtube video of the race with Kayla running the 4th leg:

Gram and Gampy check out Kayla’s long jump approach:

Jared, JT, and Mo watch Kayla jump:

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.