Jared won the USATF Region 1 Junior Olympic 15-16yo Long Jump with a 21′ 1.5″ jump on Saturday at Icahn Stadium in New York City (results, video, photos). The meet consisted of athletes from New England and New York. The top 5 in each event from the 16 regions across the country advance to the Junior Olympic Nationals in Greensboro later this month.
He came into the meet seeded 2nd, but bested his nearest competition by nearly 2 feet. His 21′ 1.5″ mark is the 3rd best mark achieved in the Region 1 meet in the past 14 years. He was 5th in this meet last year (18’7.75″), and 2nd in 2011 as a 13-14yo (17′ 3.5″).
His last jump (a foul) measured at 21’11”:
Jared also ran the 400m in 52.93 for 6th in the 92 deg F heat:
Jared won the USATF New England Junior Olympic age 15-16 Long Jump competition at Fitchburg State with a 20′ 2″ jump (photos). Having the meet likely wrapped up after his 1st jump, he was aggressive in his subsequent jumps and got out to around the 22′ mark but fouled. 2nd place was 18’7″. He previous won this event two years ago in the 13-14yo division.
He also placed 2nd in the 400m in 52.14, coming on strong wit a reverse-split 25.8 final 200m, but lost by 0.03 (see video). He is in white in lane 4.
These performances qualify him to compete in the Northeast Region meet at Icahn Stadium on Randalls Island in New York. on Saturday July 6th (info packet), with the long jump going off at 11:30am and the 400m at 2:15pm. If he places top 5 at that meet, he advances to the National meet in Greensboro with long jump on Thursday July 25th at 1:30pm and 400m on Friday at 11am.
Jared earned perhaps the highest accolade in his track career thus far Friday, placing third in the 2013 New Balance Nationals Freshman Long Jump competition (results, photos, patch article).
He came in on paper tied as top seed, although the late entry of Grant Holloway from Virginia, the USA #1 track freshman in high jump(6’11”), 110m hurdles(14.45), and 300m hurdles (38.56), as well as the USA #3 400m (48.58), and (now) USA #9 in long jump (22’3″) made winning a long shot. Holloway is also indoor national frosh champ at 60m and 400m.
After having to abort his first jump mid-air due to officials yelling “stop” to exiting 100m runners nearly cutting him off, Jared rested just a moment and then opened with a 20’8″ jump. He held the meet record (for the new event 🙂 for 10 minutes until Holloway opened with a 22’0″ jump.
Jared kept Holloway on his toes, with Holloway’s 22′ jump being an inch outside Jared’s PR of 21’11” from the D1 state meet. Jared held 2nd until the final round when Tyson Spears from Roswell, Georgia jumped 21’1″. Jared countered with another 21’0″ jump on his final attempt.
Looking at Jared’s three previous National Championship competitions, he has improved 5 feet in last 3 years: 2011 USATF Youth Nationals — 16’0″ — 11th 2012 USATF Youth Nationals — 19’2″ — 6th
2013 New Balance Nationals — 21’0″ — 3rd
I extracted the New Balance clips and the audio and combined it with my videos of his 1st and 4th jump to make a highlight video. Use this link http://youtu.be/UeqfHviw0V8 if you want to share it.
Check it out:
There are also videos of his 2nd and 3rd attempt on runnerspace (clink on the links).
It also gave him an official and faster qualifier for the New Balance Freshman 400m on Friday, as they had flagged the relay split submitted (entries). The twilight meets have a range of high school, college, and post grad runners shooting for qualifying times.
Lisa and I were at Special Olympics all day. Jared decided to run meet at 4pm and we got over to Bentley just under the wire at 4:30pm for race-day entry. In other news, Jared’s two Massachusetts Middle School Championship records in long jump and 4x100m survived the 3rd annual middle school meet yesterday. I think the 4x100m has a shot at lasting as two event limits will often lead strong runners to run individual events instead. Jared took team approach with 4×1 team.
See New Balance Video from FloTrack below (Jared in Purple shirt in lane 4) with race commentators:
Jared placed 2nd in the 200m and 3rd in the long jump at the 2013 Bay State Conference Outdoor Track Championships (results, photos, jump sequences).
In the 200m he ran 24.00 into a headwind to place 2nd behind the fastest runner in the state (UConn-bound indoor 55m state open champion PJ Hayes).
In the long jump he jumped 20′ 0.75″ to place 3rd behind teammate and New England #1 triple jumper David Oluwadara and indoor league MVP Jason Motovu from Norwood.
Only one other freshman got a top 3 finish in any event in the 12-school league.
Bay-State All-Star voting remains to be completed, but Jared has set himself up well for consideration by performing well in this meet and ending the league season as the #1 ranked long jumper, #3 ranked 200m runner, anchor of Newton North’s 7-0 4x100m team, and (I think) 5th highest dual meet scorer in league.
Jared set a new 22.4 200m personal best taking 2nd in the 200m as Newton North defeated Weymouth 101 – 35 to conclude a 7-0 undefeated season (results, photos). He defeated a 49.6 400m runner from Weymouth, who was responsible for the dramatic Weymouth 4×4 win that tied this meet last year. The 22.4 ranks him 29th in the country among freshman on athletic.net and 71 of 22,000 on milesplit.com. In Massachusetts, it ties him for 3rd in the Bay State league rankings (behind teammate Ryan and UConn bound PJ Hayes from Walpole) and gives him a top 10 ranking overall on athletic.net (state database is not complete).
He also took 2nd in the long jump to his teammate Dave (20’6″) and anchored the 4x100m to a come from behind photo-finish win.
Jared was 3rd highest dual meet point scorer on the North team and (I think) 4th highest scorer in the league, contributing 59 individual points and 35 points via the 7 wins of the undefeated 4x100m relay (67.5 total if you allocate 1.25/relay).
Video of Newton North winning 4x100m relay (Jared anchor):
Kayla placed 6th in the long jump (5.12m ) and 4th in the triple jump (10.89m) at the New York State Track Conference Championships, held at St. Laurence on Friday and Saturday  (results, day 1 press release,  day 2 press release).  She earned 8 points for Ithaca’s win, improving on her 7th and 5th place seeds respectively.
FILE PHOTO from Sam Howell Invitational at Princeton earlier this year:
Jared had his first outdoor track meet as a Newton North Tiger on Thursday last week (photos, results).
Jared and Kayla set high goals for themselves and I can count on 1 hand how many times they have come away from a meet satisfied with their performances. This was one of those meets.
He next anchored the North 4x100m team to 1st with a 10.9 split in a league-leading 46.5:
He next won the 200m over a field of 19 runners in a personal best 23.0, upsetting Lucas Holt, the fastest freshman indoors at 55m and 2nd fastest at 300m. This mark currently ranks him tied for #1 in the Bay State Conference and qualifies him for the D1 state championships in the event (see photo sequence).
He also took 2nd in the triple jump with a 37’3″ jump (jump sequence), scoring a team-leading total of 18 of Newton North’s 105 points in their 105-35 point win over Natick.
Jared combined with Ryan Lucken, Ben Porter, and Dan Swain to run a season’s best 1:32.46 in the 4x200m relay, the 5th fastest time in Massachusetts and 11th in New England this year and a milesplit elite-level performance (results). The team placed 10th in the emerging elite division and ranks 104th (out of 10,000 teams) in the US.
Team splits: Ryan 22.66, Ben 23.07, Jared 23.37, Dan 23.29
Ryan’s lead off leg was impressive with the flat start. The equivalent of roughly 22.0 for a running start leg.
Here is the professional New Balance / Armory video of the race:
Here is mom’s version:
In the Freshman 60m dash, Jared improved on his 32nd seed to place 22nd (7.65, 7.099 55m split), but with over 3 weeks since his last 55m race, didn’t get the start he was looking for. The starter was a bit erratic (as commentators mention), but that’s something to adapt to when racing outside of Reggie. Results
Mom’s version:
Jared also served as alternate for the Newton North Sprint Medley. He ran on the MA #1 team that qualified the North to compete in the national meet. The team raced to an All-American 6th place.
Kayla came into the final meet of her indoor season — Saturday’s Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference Division III Championships — seeded a distant 18th in the long jump.
The ECAC Division III consists of 186 member schools, so that’s a pretty good accomplishment in itself. But then as Kayla’s coach said to us yesterday, there is a reason why they actually run track meets rather than just hand out medals based on the seed performances.
Kayla opened her long jump competition with a indoor PR-matching 17’5.25″ jump and then followed it with a strong 17’4.25″ jump that would prove important. She finished 2nd in the 1st flight of 11 jumpers, but with 13 better jumpers remaining to jump in the 2nd flight to fill out the 9-woman final, she figured her day was likely over and headed to the stands to visit with the family.
The 2nd flight under-performed vs. their PRs, and after they were finished jumping, Kayla had made the finals (3 more jumps) and stood in a 3-way tie for 4th place, with her strong 2nd jump giving her the lead among them on the tie-breaker.
I have never seen such a tight field. Look at the performances of the top 9 jumpers going into the final 3 jumps:
5.46 5.39 5.32 5.31 5.31 5.31 5.30 5.30 5.30
Only 3/4″ separated places 3-9, and ALL the jumpers in the final had a better personal best than Kayla, so she could easily fall back out of the points to 9th if others improved and she didn’t.
In 4th round one of the three 5.30 jumpers popped off a 5.51 for the lead, and pushed Kayla back to 5th. Kayla responded on her 5th jump with an indoor/outdoor PR 5.39m (17′ 8.25″) that moved her up past the 4th place 5.32 to 3rd place tie, with her 2nd jump again winning the tie breaker. That jump is over a foot better than her 16’8″ high school indoor PR.
Kayla’s 6 points made her Ithaca’s 4th highest point contributor toward the team title, only exceeded by NCAA-championship-bound seniors Jenn Randall, Amanda Rissmeyer, and Emilia Scheemaker. Kayla’s performance ranks her 43rd in the NCAA division III qualifying list, with the top 16 (18’1.75″) qualifying.
Kayla also competed in the triple jump on Friday, delivering her 2nd best career performance with a 35′ jump for 14th place.
