Saturday was an exciting day to open our season.  This was the 5^th year hosting this “early bird” meet and was by far the best weather we have had.  I know the boys were excited to get started and have our first official competition of the season.  The adrenaline was running high, and thanks to some exciting performances early in the meet, the boys did a great job carrying that into the second half of the meet.  Having field events in the meet really makes for a long day, but the coaches were impressed by what we saw to open the season.

 

I want to reiterate my thanks to the coaches that I sent this weekend.  Running a meet is not a one-person show, so everyone pitching in made that meet happen.  I also appreciate all the parental support at the meet.  Most of our other meets will feel a bit faster, taking place after school or having limited events, with the exception of the Timberwolf Classic meet on April 11^th and the state meet on May 23^rd.  These are also the biggest meets with the toughest competition, so a long day means more rest between events, so length is not always a bad thing.

 

As our main goal is for everyone to improve, that is where I want to start.  Initial time trials did indeed yield a lot of personal bests, especially new event personal records (NEPRs), so getting a PR after that initial one is a bit more challenging.  That, combined with the fact that athletes are more fatigued in the later events at a meet, especially on a warm day, can certainly minimize the personal bests.  Despite all that adversity, the team amassed 56 personal bests across the meet, with 39 running PRs and 17 field event PRs.  Among the results were 19 “elite performances” and 3 school records (plus 1 close call).  There were also 6 meet records across the 13 events.

 

Lawson Clelland got the record train started with his 1^st throw sailing out to the 2^nd furthest a St. Chris middle schooler has ever thrown in the discus.  He improved by almost 6 more feet on his final throw, finishing just 3 inches ahead of the old STC MS record from 2021.  This throw of 91-9.5 was a huge 21 ½ foot PR for Lawson, spurring on 4 of his 5 teammates to earn personal bests, including the first time over 50 feet each for Miko, David, and Eddie.  Eddie got further every throw and ended up almost 11 feet over his time trial PR.  The field domination continued with 5 out of 7 in the shotput earning a personal best.  Lawson improved by over 30” and Jelus by 21” (from time trials), putting them 5^th and 6^th, respectively on the all-time STC MS shotput list.  Sam and Ricky also cracked the 25-foot elite performance mark for the first time thanks to a 9” improvement for each of them.  Henry led all STC shot putters in improvement with his 35” increase in just his second day throwing!  Lawson locked up both meet records in shotput and discus.

 

In the jumps, it was more of the same for the Saints.  Jahmari led the way in the long jump, clearing the elite performance mark of 16-feet for the first time ever, and with plenty of room to spare at 16-9.  This almost 1-foot PR was just over an inch off the meet record set last year by Elex.  After earning his first elite performance this winter in the long jump, Palmer was right back in the zone in outdoor going 16-1.  Tapiwa had a 1-foot PR and is now just 10 inches from an elite performance.  DJ also added a nice 6” PR in his first event ever as a Saints track athlete.  High jump saw Charlie clear his first height ever and a pair of 4” PRs from Reid and Freddy.  After clearing 4-10, Freddy was able to take attempts at the elite performance height of 5-0, so we know that will be on his goal radar during the upcoming meets.  Elex picked up right were he left off when he finished 3^rd at states last year, setting the middle school record of 5-6.  He cleared 5-4, a new meet record, on Saturday and had some good attempts at 5-6 before hitting the track for a record-setting day.

 

Elex’s assault on the middle school record books began in the 100 meter dash.  He ran away from the field, winning by about .7 seconds, which may not seem like much, but in the 100, that is about 15 meters.  He came up just short of Brandon Thomas’ STC middle school record (.07 seconds off) to log the 2^nd fastest time in STC middle school history.  It was a PR, which is the goal at the end of the day, and eclipsed the old meet record by .05 seconds (which was a blistering 11.68).  Elex’s PR was part of a 10 for 10 PR effort in the 100 for the Saints…10 runners, 10 personal bests!  Lucas and Tapiwa improved upon their already elite performance times, now both in the top 15 in STC MS history.  James Pickren just missed an elite performance by .01 seconds in the time trial 100, but got .03 under that time this time around.  Bryce had the biggest drop, .68 seconds, of the group and Levon earned his first time in the event.

 

The sprint brigade was not done, however.  After time trials, the coaches were looking forward to the potential of the 4x100 team to break the middle school record.  Harnessing Tapiwa’s strong start, a couple of newcomers in the middle with James Pickren and Lucas, and of course anchoring with one of the fastest middle schoolers in the state, it was only a matter of getting the baton around with minimal issue.  This quartet did a great job, especially for the first time out, so props to them (and Coach Dunn for working with them – the best in the biz with handoffs).  These strong handoffs helped them obliterate the old middle school record by 1.20 seconds.  Again, that may not sound like a lot, but to give you some context, these are the top 5 times in STC MS history: 47.07, 48.27, 48.38, 48.43, and 48.45.  Also to put this into perspective, the winning time at the middle school state meet last year was 47.06 and we just missed that by .01 in the first meet of the season.

 

The final sprint event on the day is the 200, and despite being the 3^rd to last event of the meet, there were still plenty of fireworks to be had.  Elex once again ran away from the field (more than 2 seconds ahead of the runner up) with a big PR of 1.66 seconds and a new middle school record of 23.77, just .13 seconds ahead of Brandon Thomas’ old record from 2012.  This also eclipsed the old meet record of 23.93.  James Pickren and Lucas once again logged another elite performance.  Eddie and DJ each dropped over a second to both go sub-29 while Ricky and Henry also added personal best times.  That is 16 out of 17 100 and 200 runs yielding a personal best.

 

The mid-distance group also had a good day with 5 personal bests in the individual 400 to go along with 4 more in the 4x400 relay at the end of the meet.  Tapiwa had an elite performance in the 4x400, leading his team of Eli, Jahmari, and Palmer (filling in for Aidan) to a team elite performance that ranks 17^th all-time for our STC MS 4x4s.  Jahmari led the individual 400 field with a 2-second personal best, becoming the 12^th fastest 400 runner in STC MS history.  Considering he has classmates that rank 15^th, 10^th, and 1^st all-time for STC MS 400s, look out 4x400 relay record!  Jelus was the second Saint across the line in the individual 400 with a huge drop of over 6 seconds.  DJ was right behind him with his 3-second drop and about a second and a half behind DJ was Cameron with his 2-second drop.  We have had 43 7^th graders at STC break 1:05 in the 400, with DJ and Cameron now on that list.  Sam added another PR to the bunch and Reid Pemberton, although he did not eclipse his 1:10.00 PR, ran 1:10.29 in the 400 and 1:10.64 in the 4x400 relay, showing his consistency.  The 800 saw 2 PRs with a solid 4-second drop for Ford and 40-second drop for Levon.  His 800 best was a 6^th grade PE 800 split, but 40 seconds is still a huge drop no matter how you frame it.  Speaking of huge drops, we had 4 other 800 PRs in the opening 4x800 relay as Lachlan dropped over 10 seconds and Tilghman dropped just under 10 seconds, helping the B team blow their seed time out of the water.  Jelus dropped over 4 and Carson just under 3 to help the A team to an impressive time with Eli and Aidan.

 

The distance crew had a bit warmer day than I am sure they would like but showed a lot of grit and determination.  Miko had been chasing that 6:00 mile mark for a long time and blew it out of the water with a 13-second drop to run 5:52.  Ford was close to breaking 6:00 (a half second over) but was so close thanks to a gutsy race that gave him almost a 20-second PR!  LB and Aidan also added 1600 PRs, Aidan’s being particularly impressive given then pain he was dealing with before the race.  The 3200, which is the 2^nd to last event and run in warm conditions, was a physically and mentally tough race for the boys on Saturday.  A shout out to Hudson, Charlie, and LB for running their first-ever 3200 and finishing despite the heat.  Miko was our only runner to have run the 3200 before Saturday.  The team is very appreciative of this quartet taking on this race, something most other boys on the team would like to avoid having to do.  I want to highlight the grit shown by LB and Miko to work together and chip away at the leader from St. Bridget.  Despite a 20-30 meter gap that opened up around the halfway point, LB and Miko worked together to reel in the St. Bridget runner over the final few laps and finish with strong times.  LB broke 13:00 with Miko dropping 37 seconds to run a 13:00.

 

From a scoring standpoint, although this is not our main goal, everyone enjoys winning.  And, when you win by a lot, that can be fun too.  I alluded to it earlier, but watching your teammates do well earlier in the meet can push you to do better in the latter part of the meet.  We ended up with 246 points with the next closest team, Albert Hill, at 76.  In fact, when you had up everyone else’s score at the meet, it was STC 246, the other 10 teams 248.  If we were allowed to have more than 4 individuals score in an event, we would have outscored those other 10 teams combined.  We won the meet on field events alone with 110 field event points to 136 running event points.  We swept the discus and shot with 1-2-3-4 in each of these events.  Long jump was 1-2-4-5 and high jump was 1-3-4-5, so pretty close to a sweep there.  On the track, we went 1-2-4-5 in the 100, 1-3-4 in the 200, 1-5-6 in the 400 3-8 in the 800, 3-8 in the 1600, 1-2 in the 3200 and won all 3 relays (plus a 6^th place from all 3 B teams in those relays).  Of the top 15 scorers on the boys’ side, we had 13 of them.  It was a well-rounded assault and one that I only hope will motivate us for our future middle school meets.

 

Despite the variety of disciplines that go into a track team, you can see that this year’s squad has it all.  Although our strength may lean more heavily toward the sprints and field events, this is a well-rounded team and one that is poised to do great things.  We of course will continue to work hard in practice, expect the boys to put in their weekend running, and have a supportive environment where the high jump guys celebrate the discus guys who celebrate the 3200 runners who celebrate the 4x1 relays and on and on.  Our meet against many strong public schools on April 11^th will be a good test for our team and will feel very different than the blowout win we had on Saturday.  Go ahead and add this to your motivation bucket along with the marks you have set for yourself.