Friday was another great weather day for a meet.  Although the middle school dance cut into our entries a bit, particularly later in the meet, it was a very successful meet for us.  We had 20 running PRs (including 2 NEPRs in the 3200), 8 field event PRs, and 17 elite performances.  Of these elite performances, 3 were record board worthy - Shot Put, Pole Vault, and High Jump.  Interestingly enough, all three of these performances happened within a very small time frame.

 

Lawson was in the first flight of shot put, so he posted the first record board performance of the day becoming just the 3rd STC middle schooler over 31-feet in the shot put, just 9" from 2nd place and 13.5" from the STC MS record.  With only 4 other competitors joining Arun for pole vault, everyone else was done at 7-6, allowing Arun to work on trying to beat his PR of 11-0, which sits 2nd on the STC MS record board.  He ended up clearing 10-6 and went to 11-3 for a new PR attempt.  Although he did not clear it in his 3 official attempts, he took a 4th (unofficial) attempt and cleared the height.  Although 11-3 will not count, Arun certainly gained some confidence knowing that he could clear that the next time he goes after it.  Speaking of confidence, Elex's confidence is certainly riding high after his performance on Friday.  Coming in at 5-0 for his opening height, everyone in the field, 9 other girls and boys combined, was already eliminated, except Jelus.  Jelus did a nice job getting over 5-2, but once Elex cleared 5-4, he had won the competition and it was his decision on how his heights would proceed.  He went up to 5-7 to tie his middle school record, then went up 1 inch to set a new middle school record of 5-8.  He then went up 2" to 5-10, yet another middle school record.  The size of the crowd had increased for his attempt at 5-10, and now that the bar had gone to 6-0, there were coaches, high school athletes (some not even competing until the Prep League meet the following day), parents, people that had just wandered over to the pavilion from the baseball game, and of course a slew of Elex's STC teammates.  Hiding in the little bit of shade in the outer lanes of the final turn, this group of teammates would erupt as Elex cleared each height (5-7, 5-8, 5-10), and like many others around, were on edge waiting to see the unthinkable - a middle school high jumper going over 6-0.  Elex did a nice job celebrating each clearance, enjoying his teammates, and then sitting in the shade just next to this group of teammates, thinking about the next jump during his allotted 2:00 rest time after moving to the next height.  The boys were respectful of Elex during this time and he was equally as focused on the next jump...a great balance that certainly helped.  Elex had the attention of most of the track and stayed focused on his goal of getting over the next height.  He cleared 6-0 and the nearby crowd erupted as we just witnessed history.  After that, it was onward to 6-2.  His first attempt at 6-2 was his best, running a little bit along the bar, but looking like he might have had just enough height to pull it off.  He was also about 10 jumps in at this point and that can wear on you a bit in high jump.  Although he did not clear 6-2, clearing 6-0 was a big moment.  Not only is this such a monumental height in high jump, this was a 5" PR for Elex in the event.  A 5" PR at any height is a big PR in high jump, but 5" at the heights he was jumping was phenomenal.  This 6-0 clearance puts him in a tie with one other middle schooler this season in Virginia, so that is a great confidence boost headed into middle school states in 2 weeks.

 

As mentioned, Jelus moved into a tie for 4th in the STC MS all-time list in high jump.  Jahmari and Palmer moved up the elite performance list with their long jump improvements.  Jahmari now ranks 6th and Palmer is tied for 21st.  Evan had the big PR in the discus, improving by 3.5 feet to 56-5.  In the running events, we had a lot of PRs.  We had 5 in the 100, with Lucas dropping .01 to move out of a tie for 4th fastest in STC MS history to own the 4th slot by himself.  We also had 5 PRs in the 200 with Freddy having the biggest drop.  He dropped 1.1 seconds which is pretty substantial in a 200.  James Pickren had a double elite performance day on the track, about an hour apart.  He dropped 1.4 seconds in the 400 to move up to 14th all-time and then dropped a few tenths in the 200 to tie Tapiwa for 10th all-time.  Tapiwa and Jahmari also ran elite performances in the 400 while Freddy and Reid (despite "cutting in" on the final straightaway from his assigned lane 3) had 400 PRs.  Speaking of 400, a quick shout out to our two 4x100 relay teams who did a great job with their hand-offs on Friday!

 

In the distance races, Aidan earned our only elite performance.  He dropped almost 3 seconds from his 800 to earn one of the toughest elite performances on the list.  He is now 16th on the all-time list and he did it in a tough way (going 3 seconds faster on lap 2 compared to his lap 1 split).  Despite no other elite performances in the distance events, the personal bests in these events were arguably the most impressive of the day.  Carson, who began the year running 6:03 in the 1600 at the end of February, did a great job chipping away at his 1600 time this season.  He ran 5:50 in the first high school meet, 5:45 at Collegiate, and anchored the B DMR at the relay meet with a 5:35.  Just 4 days after that relay meet, Carson dropped 14 more seconds to run a 5:21, just under 2 seconds from an elite performance.  What an impressive time drop, and with several weeks to go, who knows, he may get that elite performance by breaking 5:20.  After finishing cross country in the fall with a 6:12 1600, Hudson had a goal to break 6:00 this outdoor track season.  After several races around 6:30, Hudson dropped down to close to his PR with a 6:16 at the relay meet on Monday.  With the goal of breaking 6:00 on his mind, Hudson went after it and ran a 6:02 on Friday, about 14 seconds faster than 4 days prior.  Much like Carson, a few seconds off that 1600 time during time trials would be a big deal, getting him under 6:00.  The biggest drop of the day came from John who dropped over 25 seconds from his 1600 PR.  After a breakthrough 800 at the distance meet a few weeks ago, it was great to see John close in on the 6:00 mark in the 1600 with his 6:10 on Friday.  A shout out to Evan who ran his 2nd best career 1600 in that race on Friday.  The last guys on the track for the middle school team were the quartet of 3200 runners.  LB ran his 4th, yes 4th, 3200 of the season, and although he did not get a PR, he still broke 13:00 while running in "no man's land" for most of the race.  A shout-out to Miko who ran his 3rd 3200 of outdoor track, but has logged the most 3200s of any runner at STC as he also ran 3 of them indoor.  As most boys on the team want nothing to do with this race distance, they owe LB and Miko a big thank you for helping gobble up the points during their combined TEN 3200 races this year!  The other half of our 3200 quartet were Ford and Lachlan.  They were running in the first 3200 of their career, so they were guaranteed a NEPR just for finishing.  I want to applaud them for being willing to do this race, and I was pleased to see them run it together, pretty evenly, and finish well under 14:00.  Now they know they can do it, and much like Miko who ran his first 3200 in 7th grade (in 14:54), maybe they will find themselves being the 3200 point gobbler next season.  Plus, if Miko can drop over 2:20 from 7th grade to 8th grade in the 3200, maybe these two can as well!

 

The score in this meet was actually pretty exciting for a good part of the meet.  At one point, following the 300 hurdles, we were tied with our upper school team at 79 points.  The discus was then scored, giving the upper school team a 25-point boost, which they added to in the 200 with another 25.  Although we picked up 13 in the 3200, there was no way we were catching our upper school team.  Had we made the lineup for scoring purposes, it may have been tight, but that was not our goal at this meet.  We faced mainly high school competition and still beat everyone in the meet except our high school team.  There were only 3 middle school-only teams at the meet, so we will only count those victories in our now 46-1 season record.  Individually, STC upper school RJ Johnson edged out Elex for the individual scoring leader of the meet with 20.5 compared to Elex's 20 from winning both the High Jump and the 100.

 

We look strong heading into time trial week and also the state meet on Saturday, May 23rd.