Kayla had a great Bay State Championship meet Wednesday (Tab Article, photos, jump sequences, results). She came in ranked 9th in the league in the long jump. After an opening foul, she soared 16′ 8″ for an all-time PR, raising her indoor PR by over a half a foot. She followed up with a 16’7″ and advanced to the finals. She placed 5th in the competition behind teammates Carla Forbes and Kayla Wong, with just 2 athletes from the remaining 11 schools getting in ahead of her. Maeve Larkin placed 7th to put 4 Newton athletes in the top 7. Kayla now ranks 20th state-wide in the long jump and 49th in New England.
In the 55m hurdles, she hit her 5th straight personal best, dropping her time from 9.47 to 9.32 for a surprise advance to the finals where she placed 8th with a 9.35. She came in seeded 14th in the league and upset several athletes with faster times. Newton advanced 4 athletes to the 8-person hurdle final! See the picture sequence of the hurdle race.
As far as I can tell, Kayla was one of only 4 athletes to place in top 8 in two events, with the other three being Carla, Kayla W, and Melissa Darling of Weymouth.
From a Connecticut perspective, she ranks 11th in Long jump and would place 4th in Class LL meet and be 4th seed in the Class L meet.The hurdle mark would rank her 22nd in CT. Both long jump and 55m hurdles performance would win the NVL meet in each event.
As it turned out, the title worked, but I changed it to “Trifecta” as that was what the Boston Globe called Kayla’s accomplishments.
Why three?
Kayla for the first time competed in 3 events. The 3xLong Jump relay (where each jumper only gets 2 attempts and the total distance is added), the 4x50m shuttle hurdle relay, and the 4x50m dash. The expectations on her and her relays teammates were enormous. The message from J.T was they needed to take 1st or 2nd in all her 3 events to have a chance to win the meet — and they delivered — in style.
How did it turn out:
Not only was “Three” the sports.priorfamily title, its the Boston Globe’s headline! (“trifecta” being the 3xmeet records) :
Each winter, the Newton North girls’ track team circles the MSTCA Relays on the schedule. The focus leading up to the ultimate team event on the schedule has often paid off, as it did yesterday at the Reggie Lewis Track Center, with the Tigers rolling to their third straight Division 1 championship.
“I’m ecstatic, to break three state records is absolutely phenomenal,’’ said Tigers coach Joe Tranchita of his team’s performance. “To come here and get the win and set records speaks volumes for their execution.’’
Newton North finished with 59 points, far ahead of Andover (36) and Weymouth (30).
The Tigers won five of the 10 events, three in record fashion. Junior Carla Forbes was prominently involved in three of those wins and two of the meet records. Forbes, Kayla Prior, and Kayla Wong set one in the long jump, combining to cover 49 feet 4 1/4 inches.
That same trio teamed up with Stephanie Brown to win the 4 x 50-yard shuttle dash in a meet-record 24.52 seconds.
“We knew we would have a good chance to win,’’ said Forbes, who also ran the anchor of the victorious 4 x 400 (4:03.74). “We didn’t come here with the mind-set to break records, we just wanted to try and do our best and hopefully take first.’’
The Tigers’ other record run came in the 4 x 50 shuttle hurdles, which was run in 29.11 by Wong, Brown, Prior, and Sonja Lehman.
“This is a huge meet for us every year because it is the one pure team meet and you really have to have a full range of depth, not just one or two superstars,’’ Tranchita said. “This is really about the team talent.’’
Newton North capped a thoroughly dominant team performance yesterday with its biggest star bringing down the Reggie Lewis Center in the final event of the Division 1 Relays.
Carla Forbes clocked a sterling anchor leg of 58.6 seconds in the 4×400 to give the squad a meet-closing victory. The team of Forbes, Meghan Bellerose, Maddie Nadeau and Isabella Reilly tore up the swift oval in 4:03.74, more than three seconds in front of runner-up Wachusett (4:06.94).
The Tigers captured their third consecutive team title with 59 points. Andover (36 points) was a distant second, followed by Weymouth (30).
Newton North set three meet records in the process. Stephanie Brown, Forbes, Kayla Prior and Kayla Wong combined to clock a 24.52 in the 4×50. Brown, Wong, Prior and Sonja Lehman took the 4×50 hurdles in 29.11. Forbes led the long jump crew with a mark of 18 feet, 3 inches, on the way to a relays-record 15.04 meters.
“I’m ecstatic, absolutely ecstatic,†Newton North coach Joe Tranchita said. “It was the seniors who really got the bulk of those records. This is a huge meet on our schedule every year.â€
It was a record breaking day as the Newton North girls took home the team title and set three meet records in the process. The Tigers surpassed the previous best marks in the 4×50 Yard Relay (24.52), the 4×50 Yard Hurdles Relay (29.11), and the Long Jump (49’4.25) with Kayla Wong and Kayla Prior as part of all three record breaking teams. Steph Brown competed on the 4x50y dash relay and the 4x50y hurdles relay; both of which are new state records. Carla Forbes also competed on the dash relay and led the team in the long jump relay. She ended the day by anchoring the winning 4x400m relay, and the building erupted with cheers as Forbes received the baton and broke open a significant lead with her 58.6 split.
So back to the “Three”
3 Newton North School Records (3xLJ, 3×50 hurdles, 3×50 dash)
3 Gold Medals
30 of Newton’s 59 points
3rd consecutive team indoor title for the seniors (2010, 2011, 2012)
3 Meet Records
2 State Records (3×50 hurdles, 3×50 dash)
Newton won the meet with 59 points, with over half coming from Kayla’s relays. Several state records in this meet date back to the early 1980’s. The hurdle record was 10 years old. Breaking meet records in 3 of the meets 10 events in the span of 2 hours is just off the charts and a great way to close out her last high school indoor relay meet. Even Carla Forbes only has 2 meet records! I don’t think there is enough returning talent at North to threaten these next year, and once Carla is gone, they will stick at North if not the state for quite some time.
Here a youtube video of the races. Use this link to share with others rather than sending to sports.priorfamily:
Long Jump
The relay format only allows for 2 jumps instead of the normal 3 so jumpers need to be on. The girls, jumping in the first of 4 flights, all hit good marks on their first attempts and locked down the gold before most jumper even started and drew within 10cm of the record. The amazing thing is that they bested the field by over 4 feet and accomplished this record all this while jumping over a foot short of their personal bests. Kayla actually jumped the closest of the three to her PR. Kayla and Co were disappointed about the last “2”, as their 49’4″ was just 2″ off the all-division state record. Kayla jumped 15′ 3.25″ for 6th of 45 jumpers and was only beaten by jumpers with 17’5+ PRs. Even though Carla Forbes’ 18′ jump powered the record, 3x Kayla’s jump would have still won the event by over a foot. Kayla Wong and Carla jumping last year with senior captain Amy Ren only totaled 47’5″, which yielded 2nd place. As a sophomore, she jumped with Carla and Amy to 45’9″ for the win, so this is almost a 4 ft improvement for the team from then.
Hurdles
Kayla only got her 3-step down in last two meets and the 4th hurdler only competed in the event for the first time last week. It wasn’t totally clear they would even enter the event seriously until then, with the potential to divert runners to the 4x200m relay.
Kayla took off on the 3rd leg in 2nd place with a safe start and charged forward into 1st and for Kayla Wong to power home on the final leg for the 29.11 record, 1.41 ahead of 2nd team. Kayla’s split of 7.27 was a half second faster than last year when they won in 29.88 and made the difference this year.
Similarly to the long jump, while Kayla Wong powered the record, assuming a 0.7s reaction time on the first leg, 4 “KPs” would run 7.97+3×7.27=29.78, which would beat last year’s winning North time and win this year by over half a second.
Dash
In the 4×50 Kayla took hand-off from Carla Forbes about even and held North in a tie for 1st on her leg and then Kayla Wong powered home again to a 24.52 time. This same team took third when Kayla was a sophomore to set the previous school record of 25.34. They went a full .8 seconds faster this time. Kayla didn’t run last year when the team DQed on a start. Kayla split 6.17 — the “4 Kayla” time here would be 25.38, just outside the previous school record from 2010 and good for a respectable 7th out of 38 teams in this meet.
It’s easy to for Kayla (and the press) to see the records as all about Carla and Kayla W, but these three records would not have happened without Kayla on her game.
With one state relay meet to go, Kayla’s cummulative relay title total rises to 8 (2010 indoor 3xLJ, outdoor 4x100hurdles, 2011 indoor 4×50 hurdles, outdoor 3xLJ, 3xTJ) and total points to 87, with the remaining 7 points coming from a 2009 4×50 hurdle B-team 6th and the 2010 4×50 bronze.
This meet provides the big upside of the Newton North situation. In the last two dual meets Kayla competed in 6 events, shutting out brookline in 3, Weymouth in 1, and only losing to 1 Weymouth athlete in the other 2 events, yet only took home 4 points for a 2nd and a 3rd in LJ due to the great teammates she has.
In what was projected to be a close meet, Newton blew out Weymouth 64-31 on the strength of team energy (results, newton track blog). Kayla ran a PR 9.70 in the 55m hurdles and and an 8.05 in the 55m dash. Only Weymouth star Melissa Darling beat her in these events from Weymouth. She placed third in the long jump (15’5.25″), defeating Darling who fouled out and swinging a potentially pivotal 2 points to Newton if the meet had gone according to form.
Kayla jumped to 2nd place in the long jump (16′ 3/4″) and ran personal bests in the 55m hurdles (9.71) and 55m dash (7.97) — defeating all Brookline competitors in all 3 of her events. That translated to a 2nd, 4th, and a 4th in Newton’s 83-9 victory over Brookline (results, photos). Uncle Paul made a cameo!
Kayla came in seeded 18th of 21 in a very competitive field at the Dartmouth Relays from across the Northeast and Canada in the long jump on Saturday and moved up to 12th. She wasn’t satisfied with her mark (15′ 5 3/4″), but only 9 competitors from other schools bested her. Newton placed 2nd in the meet (photos, milesplit coverage,results).
This was the feature photo of the meet on http://ma.milesplit.com:
From milesplit: Carla Forbes (Newton North, MA) opened up the long jump competition with a 19’4†(US#3) bomb. To prove it was not a fluke, she launched two more jumps over 19 feet to win the competition by over five inches. Forbes also won the triple jump with a US#1 mark of 40â€10â€. She leads the country in that event by almost nine inches.
Kayla opened her 2012 Season with an indoor personal best 16’1.75″ at the Mass State Track Coaches Association Winter Festival (results, photos, milesplit coverage, Newton Tab). Newton took 1st, 3rd, and 4th with only 1 athlete from the other 45 other competitors sneaking in for 2nd. Kayla currently ranks 10th in the state. She placed 17th in the open last year indoors and ranked 25th among returning athletes.
Saturday, February 18 – February Vacation Begins
Sunday, February 19 – Div. 1 State Meet
Sunday, February 26 – State Open
Saturday, March 10 — New Balance Nationals
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.
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.
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.
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).
