It was certainly a sloppy day for a track meet.  Luckily most of the field events were completed before the rains came, with the exception of the discus.  Most of the events were completed in rain, with the later events also dealing with some puddling on the track.  The sky did clear up for the boys 1600 and the 4x400 relay to close out the meet.  The cool weather, low 60s by the end, was certainly nice for our 1600 runners, but not great for most as warming up proved to be challenging for the boys.  The lack of warm-up combined with the wet weather made it a mentally challenging meet for most boys.  Props to the 1600 guys who contributed to our best event of the meet in terms of PRs and elite performances.  In fact, we earned 9 elite performances on the day, including two new elite performances in an event and also the highlight of the meet - a new middle school record in the 1600.

 

The cool weather was a welcome surprise today for our 1600 runners.  This meet is typically in the upper 80s, so I was hopeful our 1600 runners would take advantage of the weather, and they certainly did.  Up front, we had a rematch of our middle school distance meet 1600 from several weeks ago (minus the Louisa runners).  With 2 at 4:53, a 4:56, a 4:59, and a 5:02 all once again in the field, this race was set up for more fast 1600 times.  After a strong first lap, the pace waned and the boys had to quickly get back to pushing on the third lap.  Langdon Sexton came through the 1200 (1 lap to go) in 3:41, with Charlie Branch right behind in 3:42.  These boys really had to dig deep to be able to get a PR and also knock off the middle school record.  Through the puddles that drenched the track in lanes 1 and 2, Langdon found a way to close the way he began, running about a 1:09/1:10 for his final lap, crossing the line in 4:51.11, breaking the STC middle school record by 1.03 seconds (LT Nguyen - 2023).  This was a 2.4 second PR for Langdon.  His time was only .62 behind the Louisa runner's state leading time for the middle school 1600, run at our distance meet a few weeks ago.  Charlie Branch also earned a personal best, dropping almost 2 seconds down to 4:55.11, moving up to 4th on the all-time STC MS list.  This was Charlie's 3rd time breaking 5:00 in the 1600 in the last 2 weeks!  Langdon and Charlie now own 5 of the 16 sub-5:00 STC MS times in the 1600, including 3 of the top 6 times.  Behind Langdon and Charlie, Davis Mullen ran his 3rd 5:03 of the year, solidifying his rank as the 2nd fastest 1600 runner in 7th grade STC MS history.  We appreciate Davis' efforts this spring and willingness to join us for this meet and the distance meet in his quest to break 5:00 and may see him give it one more shot during time trials in the coming weeks.  Our other trio of 1600 runners was our big PR group.  Aveon Wynn dropped over 10 seconds, Teddy Sterrett dropped over 12 seconds, and Evan Clary dropped almost 31 seconds.  These three boys all came very close to breaking 6:00 in the 1600, with Aveon at 6:04, Evan at 6:05, and Teddy at 6:10.  These guys definitely have a shot to break 6:00 during our time trials this coming week.

 

In our other events, the improvement was a bit more challenging to find.  David Brown dropped over 3 seconds in the 400, Palmer Telfian and Jassen Jordan dropped time in their 100s, and Tapiwa Mutoti was the lone 200 PR, now ranking 24th on the STC MS all-time list.  Emmanuel Moore also turned in an elite performance in the 200.  Palmer was our only relay PR, dropping over a second in his 4x400 relay anchor leg.  In the field events, Jassen had a double-PR in both long jump and high jump, earning his first elite performance ever with his 5-0 clearance in high jump.  Jassen became the 20th STC MS athlete to clear the 5-0 barrier  Jahmari Kenney, like Jassen, had a personal best in the long jump.  In the shot put, Gabe Wyatt just missed an elite performance by 4.5 inches.  He did have a huge almost 4-foot improvement though.  Jayden Addei did earn an elite performance in shot put, now 12th on the STC MS all time list, in his first time competing in it during a meet.  Lawson Clelland had an elite performance throw in shot put and remains 9th on the all-time STC MS list from last meet.

 

Although the meet was scored, we certainly had our hands full with schools that had upper school athletes.  We were one of the 6 all-middle school boys teams and we handily beat the other 5 to move to 45-3 on the season (61-3 if we scored the distance meet).  We piled on the distance points, going 1, 3, 5 in the 1600 and 1, 5, 6 in the 800.  Tapiwa snagged a point for us in the 200 with his 8th place finish and Corbett finished in 3rd in the 300 hurdles.  A 6th place in the 4x100 and 3rd in the 4x400 rounded out our running event scoring.  In the field, we had 2 scorers with Emmanuel 6th in the long jump and Jassen winning the high jump.  This gave us 3 wins on the day as Jassen joined Eli Holloway in the 800 and Langdon in the 1600 as winners.  Had we tried to do as much as we could in the meet, I bet we would have picked off Woodberry, a high school only team, in 3rd place.