Prior Family Sports

Kayla had a ticket to see Taylor Swift in New York with her camp buddies this evening, but a conflict with the 2010 Massachusetts Division 1 State Relay Championship kept her in town. She and her hurdler teammates made it count by taking the Div. 1 state crown for the 4x100m hurdles. Kayla split a PR 16.67 on her leg (vs. 17.54c flat start PR). The Newton girls faced off against track powerhouse and meet rival Andover (who came in with an equal #1 seed time) in the final heat and went neck and neck through 1st 3 legs. Amy and Kayla banged hurdles and fell behind mid leg but fought back at end. Well executed starts put the team ahead at the start of each leg. Their overall time of 65.24 was just short of the Division 1 state record of 64.00 set by North’s 2009 team and their performance topped all the squads fielded by the 105 scoring teams competing in the four state divisional meets this weekend ( Div 2: 66.01, Div 3:65.85, Div 4: 68.73)

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The relay contributed 10 points to Newton North’s overall 81pt win of the relay meet (results, Tab Article, globe article, Boston Herald article) over 27 other scoring schools. Newton placed 3rd the points competition the past two years and was pleased to have the trophy back. This was Kayla’s 2nd state relay title this year, adding to her indoor 3xLJ team’s win.

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From 2010-05

From Newton Tab Article:

The Division 1 State Relays are a major focus of the Newton North girls track and field program each season because it is perhaps the best example of any competition of a team’s depth.

The Tigers showed Saturday at Durfee High School just how much depth it has this spring as it dominated the competition in winning six events and rolling to the meet team title. North finished with 81 points, with Andover second at 58 and Newton South third at 40.5.

“This is one of the best overall team performances we’ve ever had,” North coach Joe Tranchita said. “They were red hot in every event. We scored in all but two events that we entered. It was an overall team effort.

“What was most impressive was how we spread the points among all the events. We had 24 kids score. That showed the team effort. It wasn’t a couple of studs doing all the work.”

North was exceptional all over, but especially in the field events where it had four firsts and six teams that placed.

The Tigers won the long jump relay at 50 feet, 5 1/4 inches behind Carla Forbes, Amy Ren and Kayla Wong, and set the meet triple jump record at 106-2 1/2 with Forbes, Ren and Jen Liu. The Tigers also won the shot put at 95-3 with Monet Lowe, Megan Gentile and Kate Bellerose, and the discus at 291-0 with Tatiana Froehlich, Ellen Goldberg and Lowe.

North was fourth in the high jump at 14 feet behind Emily Hutchinson, Lucia Grigoli and Maeve Larkin, and sixth in the javelin at 232-7 with Liu, Gail Patutis and Hutchinson.

North’s other firsts came in the sprint medley where the Tigers won in 4:12.55 with Ari Tabatabaie, Maddie Nadeau, Julia Cuccurullo and Margo Gillis, and the shuttle hurdles in 1:05.24 behind Ren, Kayla Prior, Liu and Wong.

“We wanted to keep it simple,” Tranchita said. “We have found over the years that is the key with this meet. Not over-assessing what you are capable of, but just do what you’re capable of and let the meet take care of itself.”

The Tigers were third in the 4×100 relay in 50.08 with D’jaidah Wynn, Forbes, Stephanie Brown and Wong; third in the distance medley in 12:31.75 with Maggie Heffernan, Bellerose, Tabatabaie and Gillis; and fourth in the 4×800 in 9:51.17 with Meghan Bellerose, Sam Gluck, Jaya Tripathi and Ali Hurwitz.

“I have been to a lot of Relays and their performance was one of the all-time great ones,” South coach Steve McChesney credited. “This may be the most well-rounded team that they have had. They have carved out the front-runner label the rest of the season.”

From Globe Article:

The Newton North girls were able to follow up their 10th consecutive undefeated Bay State League season with six event wins. The Tigers placed in all but three events to score 81 points. Andover was a distant second with 58, followed by Newton South with 40 1/2.

Longtime Newton North coach Joe Tranchita said the team’s winning tradition helps motivate each successive squad to maintain that standard.

“We have a very rich tradition that we get the kids to take pride in and want to buy into,’’ he said. “We challenge them, season by season, to contribute to that legacy.’’

The Tigers had a few hiccups that nearly were costly, starting with half the team almost missing their start times. A schedule mix-up had Newton North thinking the girls were on the oval in the morning and the field in the afternoon, the opposite of what it was. Fortunately, they made it in time.

“They were already on their way, so it wasn’t that big a deal,’’ said Newton North’s Carla Forbes, who was on the triple jump team that set a state record (106-2), the winning long jump team (50-4), and the third-place 4 x 100 relay team.

From Boston Herald:

The Newton North girls won 4-of-7 field events en route to a first-place showing of 81 points. Carla Forbes took the top spot in the long jump and the triple jump.

“We wanted to do well in all the running events, too,” Forbes said. “But the fact that we did dominate in the field events took a lot of the stress off the runners to know that they didn’t have to put it all on them.”

Newton North’s 4 x 100 shuttle hurdles and 1,600 sprint medley teams took top honors.

From 2010-05

Newton defeated Framingham today 107-29 to take league title and complete an undefeated dual meet season (results). Kayla took 3rd in the 100m hurdles (matching her PR of 17.3) and 3rd in the Long Jump where she had the 2nd (15’9″) and 3rd (15’8″) longest jumps of her career. She also won the 2nd heat of the 100m dash in 13.6 (3rd best time).

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Kayla jumped to a 3rd place in the long jump with a 15’4″ (2nd best outdoors) in Newton’s 119-12 blow out of Needham last week. She also placed 4th in hurdles with her 2nd fastest race all-time (17.4). Newton had lightened their line-up to avoid a blow out, but Needham pulled their distance runners to train which made it worse than expected. Nanny and Papa made the journey to see the meet but Kayla was too fast for them :-).

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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 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.