The third and final StC Middle School Meet of the year was a fireworks show! Like last meet, we were heading into the competition down a few key team members. However, the rest of the squad responded in a big way to take the title back from Franklin Military again and earn a little revenge from the late December loss. Here is the MEET RESULTS DOCUMENT and the link to the official MileStat Results. Now, on to the narrative!

We started off the meet with an Elite Performance! West popped off an eleven inch improvement in the Long Jump to top 16’ for the first time. This is only the 25th time an StC MS athlete has achieved an elite performance in this event and he is now tied for 18th All-Time. In addition to this big achievement, he also earned 5th place points for the team. Congrats, West! Luca DiMeglio was our other athlete earning recognition in this event this week, competing in his first jumps and setting his “neeper.”

The High Jump was again good for our team points with three of our athletes scoring in the top 8. Freddy led the way today landing third place credit and drawing level with his personal best. Aidan was right behind him earning 4th place points. Luca Testani returned to the High Jump with a one inch personal best that was good enough to get the Saints a 6th place in the tallies. Miko also tacked on another inch after he PR’ed in practice 24 hours before in practice!

Shot Put earned the most recognition notes of any event this week, including some big improvements, three lads in scoring positions, and two more Neepers! Ivan came through as our top thrower, earning the bronze position in the meet. Bo put his cannon ball over a foot further than he had at the first meet of the season and earned 5th place credit in the process. Palmer found the right angle of release and suddenly jumped up 31 inches, for a toss that was over 20 feet for the first time! This throw was also worth 6th place points for StC. William and Connor earned their NEPR and finished with throws right in the mix of things. Chapin tied his previous best, while Gray broke 13 for the first time with a 9” PR. Paul skipped right over the 11 foot range, topping 12 for the first time with his 15 inch improvement.

Running events began with our first gold of the day, as Luca Testani, Gray, Chapin, and Eli combined to win the 4x800 with a pretty sizable 25 second cushion over the second place team. All four runners scored a season record, and 3 of 4 earned a PR. Luca led off the team with a one second improvement on his time from back at the first meet of the year. Gray had the biggest drop of the quartet, shedding 7 seconds. Chapin also dropped a chink of time, running four seconds faster than he did in mid-December. Eli anchored the race and looks more and more back to form as he neared his PR and set a season record. It’s just a matter of time, now…

Our other team in the 4x800 of Miko, Ely, Henry, and Teddy finished in 5th place in the race. Henry had a gigantic drop of 25 seconds to his personal best as he obliterated his time from way back in 6th Grade PE!

Nobody was more ready and excited to earn his neeper in the 55 than West. It was worth the wait. Blasting home a 7.47 time, he rocketed to a fourth place finish, a NEPR mark, and his second Elite Performance of the day! This result sets him as 10th fastest StC MS All-Time. Bo was right on his heels, placing 5th overall, dropping his PR from December by 0.14 seconds, and lowering his Elite status to 11th All-time StC MS. Congratulations guys! 

Leo had the biggest improvement on the day, bettering his PB by 0.51 (a BIG drop in the 55)! Jeb lowered his mark by 0.17 and JD shed 0.36 from his best. James set his NEPR in this event this week as well.

Connor requested his shot at the 1600 this week, and boy are we glad he did! Not only did he outperform expectations with a huge 25 second improvement on his mark from the November Time Trials, he earned the team a few extra points from his surprise 7th place finish! This was also the first time he beat the 6:00 mile threshold. Nice!

In the 4x200, Cameron, Arun, Ivan, & Freddy combined to score us 5th place points, while Luca DiMeglio, Colin, Paul, and Tilghman raced to a 6th place finish for the team. As you’ll see soon, every little bit was necessary!

Following the relay, we headed across the Field House for the 500m. It was coming, and it finally arrived! After three separate races within less than a second of the Elite mark, Aidan was able to slay the beast and earn his first Elite Performance badge. His time makes him 14th fastest StC MS All-Time in this event and currently MileStat has him ranked as the top 7th Grader in this event in the Middle School division. He also won the event, bringing home our only individual gold of the day. 

Palmer also brought home points in the 500m, earning 8th place overall. Winston lowered his personal best by 10 seconds while training buddy Leo also beat his old time from December by 7 seconds. 

Arguably, the race that won us the meet was the 1000m Run. It was the race that most caught Coach Carrier’s eye and one that we pulled more points from than anticipated. Luca Testani and Eli ran a lot of the race together and finished a mere second from each other. Luca earned a 3 -second PR out of the deal and Eli, again looking like the healthier Eli of old, posted a season record just a few seconds away from where he last left this race. They also earned silver and bronze in the event. William then came out of nowhere to clinch 4th place points with a nine-second PR resetting. Henry also improved his personal best by a second.  

Three events, three Elite Performances. West completed his final event of the day with the 300 earning a trio of accolades. He earned the Saints a fourth place finish, he earned himself a PR by about a second, and though he already had Elite status in this event, West positioned himself better now as the 12th fastest StC MS athlete in the 300m Dash All-Time. A Hat Trick of Elite Performances is certainly impressive! 

Also in the 300, Colin finished next for us with a 1 second betterment of his time from November. James brought his time down 2 more seconds while Jeb threatened the 60-second barrier inching another second closer. JD had the biggest drop of the day in the 300 with 3 seconds of improvement.

If it wasn’t the “a thousand” that put us over the top this week, the case could be made for the quartet in the 3200 as our heroes. At this point in the meet, we were behind by 9 points to Franklin Military in the live scoring. In the two-mile, we put four athletes in scoring positions compared to their sole distance runner. Gray started his 3200 career today with a second place finish and a very respectable sub-13:00 debut. Ely was again a stalwart here and again earned another PR - this time by 14 more seconds. Miko took the last meet off from this race for another event, but made up for lost time with, well, losing time. A lot of it… 58 seconds worth, in fact!. Paul also pounded his way to a 3-second personal best. Ely captured the bronze, Miko brought down 4th place, and Paul finished in 6th for the team.

With only the 4x400 left, our two teams set out to see what we could bring home. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to get any splits on these runs. We do know that Ivan, Freddy, Palmer and Aidan were able to snag bronze-level points. Our other team of Arun (filling in for a downed teammate), Chapin, Connor, and William crossed the line in 5th place for us.

In the end, every point mattered. The final scores settled to St. Chris Middle winning the meet over Franklin Military 129.5 to 126. Just three and a half points separated us. The third place team was a deeply distant Henley at fewer than 40 points. Well done guys, definitely hard fought and it feels good to finish out our middle-school-only portion of the season on top and with a 2 - 1 record over the Knights. 

Beyond the team score, we had a really impressive showing in the personal achievement category this meet. Half the team in attendance scored individual points for the team (this doesn’t even include the relay points). We had five Elite Performances, six New Event Personal Records, and 30 PRs. These are categories that other teams can’t affect and at the end of the day all that we can really control. Keep up the great work!