In a tune up for Friday’s Division 1 State Championship meet, Kayla joined some teammates to compete for the Waltham Track Club at the Needham Youth Classic (photos). She jumped 16’3″ for a personal best and 2nd place behind Carla Forbes. She also placed 4th in the 55m hurdles (10.37) and 5th in the 55m dash (8.02). Per the meet program she broke the meet long jump record (along with Carla) from 2008, but there is one 16’9″ jump listed for the meet back in 2005 it overlooks so she settles for #3 on the all-time list :-).
Kayla improved her 55m Hurdles time by 0.1 to 9.80 to take 17th in the 12-school Bay State Championship meet Wednesday (results). She also jumped 15’3″ to take 8th in the Long Jump. Newton placed 4 jumpers in the top 8.
Kayla hit a PR 15′ 11.25″ PR to take 10th in the McIntyre elite track meet at Reggie Lewis on Sunday competing against the top jumpers in the state (results, news article, track blog). She came into the trials meet last week seeded 31st and placed 18th to qualify for this week. Newton placed 1st, 5th, 7th, and 10th and has qualified 5 jumpers for the D1 state meet. She is currently ranked 33rd in the state.
KP jumped a near PR 15′ 10.5″ to take 18th in the Mass State Coaches Invitational Saturday (results, tab article, patch article, photos). The field included all the best jumpers from across the state. She came in seeded 31st (= her state ranking). This qualifies her to move on to the McIntyre elite meet on Sunday. North placed 4 in the top 18 including Carla Forbes popping a meet record #2 in nation 19′ 1″.
Newton North won a closely fought battle with Andover to take the 2011 Division 1 State Relays (results, globe article, boston herald article, track blog, tab article and photos). Kayla anchored the winning 4x50m shuttle hurdle relay (29.88) to a gold medal over 24 other teams earning 10 of Newton’s 47 points. Andover was 2nd with 42 points and Weymouth 3rd with 34 points. This is Kayla’s third D1 state relay title, adding to the 3xLJ and 4x100m hurdles wins last year.
[Update: Overall, the relay’s time led a total of 100 schools across the state: Div 2 (36), 3 (26), & 4 (14)].
Here is a video of the hurdles. Most teams save their strongest hurdlers for last leg while Newton ran their strong leg 2nd to get out ahead. The New Bedford and Andover girs running her down are the #9 and #12 hurdlers in the state. If the video below doesn’t load for you fast enough, try this link.
[flashvideo bufferlength=10 width=800 height=450 file=http://video.priorfamily.org/sports/kgp/2011/2011_shuttle_hurdle_relay.flv /]
Newton North won the Dartmouth Relays (results, article), defeating 48 other scoring teams. Kayla ran a personal best 9.91 in the 55m Hurdles for 31st place.
Newton north entered two teams in the MSTCA Team Pentathlon on the 29th. It was scored like a regular pentathlon but with different individuals in each event (results). Ten team were entered. Kayla long jumped for the B team.
Kayla placed 8th in the long jump (15’2.75″) in the Boston Holiday Challenge Invitational meet at the Reggie Lewis Center on Tuesday after a 4 day layoff due to the holiday and snow (photos, results, espn news). This was a high level meet with competitors from multiple states.
Kayla opened her 2010-2011 indoor track season at the Winter Festival at the Reggie Lewis Center Saturday (results, article) attended by 41 Massachusetts schools. She long jumped to a 15’11″ indoor PR (and 3rd best all-time) for 4th place out of 41 competitors. She came in seeded 16th. This jump qualifies her for the states and ranks her 11th in the state at the moment (rankings) and 3rd in the league. Her 2nd best jump in the meet was 15’5″.
She also ran a PR 10.08 in 55m hurdles to win her preliminary heat by a half second but just missed out of the semifinals. The dominant Newton hurdle crew (including two newcomers) sent 4 of 16 to the semis and 3 of 8 to the finals. See full set of photos on smugmug.
The Newton Tab newspaper put photos I submitted on their home page.
One of my favorite shots of the day of Kayla’s teammate Amy:
Kayla took home the bronze medal in the long jump and got 4th in the hurdles in the Bay State Games held today at UMass Lowell and also earned a snazzy Bay State Games jacket (results). She had some good looking jumps that were 1/4″ fouls. Her only legal jump is the one with the rake being pulled out of the way just in time. She also competed in the vault but opened at an agressive height. See slide shows below of all three events!
