Dear Middle School Athletes and Parents,

 

For those who stuck around for the end of the meet yesterday, it was certainly worth the wait.  There were a lot of elite performances and historical marks achieved yesterday, but the final event of the night provided the most fireworks.  The middle school record in the 4x400 was 3:47.50 going into the meet, meaning that we had a quartet of middle school runners that averaged under 57.  Yesterday's foursome of Elex, Tapiwa, Jahmari, and Aidan went into the meet with their PRs all adding up to 3:44.22, so things were looking good for a school record.  I pointed out that if everyone averaged about a 1-second drop, we could have a shot at breaking 3:40.  Everything came together nicely with Elex and Tapiwa only running the 4x100 earlier in the meet and Jahmari and Aidan fully rested with this relay as their only event.  The weather was cool and the Hanover high school team helped pull us along during most of the race.  Elex led off with a near-PR, just .36 off his middle school record time of 52.20, finishing strong after being pulled along the first half of the race by STC upper schooler Henry Nelson.  Tapiwa had over a second personal best, breaking 55 for the first time in his career and becoming just the 3rd STC MS runner to break that 55-second barrier.  He will now go on the record board in the 3rd slot for the 400.  Jahmari had a big PR of over 2 seconds and almost broke 55 himself, vaulting to 5th on the STC MS all-time list and putting us in a really good position to break 3:40 going into the final leg.  Aidan had a tough assignment as Hanover's strongest runner was their anchor, but Aidan did a great job executing his race and staying strong with no one around him.  The record seemed a done deal at this point, but it was more of a matter by how much.  Aidan added another PR, 1.5 seconds under his previous best, to get the team just under 3:40 at 3:39.85.  In pouring through middle school track results in Virginia for the past two decades I have coached, I have not seen a middle school 4x400 run faster than 3:44.  In fact, the only faster middle school 4x400 time in Virginia I could find was an elite AAU club team that ran a 3:39.62 in the junior Olympics back in (July) 2023, showing you just how impressive that performance was for us yesterday.

 

The other relay on our docket yesterday was the 4x100 relay.  After running a new school record by over 1.2 seconds at our first meet of the year, the foursome of Tapiwa, James Pickren, Lucas, and Elex reunited to try and lower that record.  Pushed by the surrounding upper school teams, they once again ran well with solid handoffs and lowered their record by almost another full second from 47.07 down to 46.15.  This time would have won the state meet last year and currently ranks 3^rd in the state among middle school teams (45.30 and 46.12 are the top two times).  We look forward to at least one more crack at this relay to try and break 46 seconds.

 

In the individual events, the history and elite performances continued.  The throwers did well to start the day for us.  Lawson Clelland increased his middle school record distance in the discus by almost 7 feet, out over 98 feet.  He is closing in on that 100-foot mark with a few meets remaining.  Jelus had a huge improvement in his discus, some 23-feet, to get to an elite performance throw of 75 feet.  This puts him in the 8^th slot on the all-time list.  Sam had a solid throw in the low 60s to wrap up our discus throwing.  This trio did well in the shotput with Jelus getting over 29 feet for the first time, moving just 2 inches ahead of Sam for 6^th place on the all-time list.  Lawson was also over 29-feet and Sam had an elite performance in the shotput.  Over at Collegiate, Arun once again pole vaulted over 11-0, tying his 2^nd best vault in STC MS history.

 

On the track, there was much joy for our only entrant in the 400.  After running 1:00.something on 3 occasions earlier this season, Eli finally broke through the 1:00 barrier with a 59.78, marking his first career elite performance.  The relief/excitement on Eli’s face was certainly a highlight for the coaches last night.  In the 200, Lucas once again used a late surge to win his heat en route to a new PR.  Although James Pickren was in a separate heat from Lucas, James also had a strong finish and both ended up with PRs that now rank the 12^th and 13^th on the STC MS all-time list.

 

Right after the 400, we had three boys take to the 300 hurdles.  Jelus and LB joined Palmer in their first 300 Hurdle race ever.  Although Palmer was just off his elite performance from Collegiate, he was pretty close.  Jelus and LB both dropped time from their 300 hurdle practice race the day before, so that was a good debut for them.  Davis Mullen joined us to go after his 1 remaining running elite performance, the 100, and he did just that.  He ran so well, he is now 16^th on the STC all-time list in the 100.  This elite performance gave him 11 individual elite performances, tying Ian Smith for the most individual elite performances in STC MS history.  He also joined Noah Smith as the only 2 STC MS athletes to have earned an elite performance in all 10 running events from 55 to 3200.  Davis also ran a PR in the 800 yesterday to move into 8^th on that all-time list.  Palmer was close to getting his 3^rd elite performance (w/ LJ and 300 Hurdles) in the 100, just missing by .17 seconds.

If we are at full strength at states (one month from today), we look to be the favorites in the 4x4 and likely the 4x8 and 4x1, depending on what other schools are attending and what new performances are earned in the coming weeks.  We have come a long way in two months of training and with 1 more month of training, we will only be that much stronger.