Yesterday was a great day for the middle school track squad from a variety of angles.  After over 2.5 weeks off from competition, the boys were itching to compete and definitely put that energy into their performances yesterday.  The weather held out nicely for us and although there were some windy moments, the clouds stayed around and the rain held off, making for some fast times, despite the dust storm of pollen surrounding the track.

 

It is hard to find a place to start with all the great stuff from yesterday, so I will start with (the day) before the meet.  Coach Dunn works with our 4x100 relay teams the day before the meet on their "blind" hand-offs, something he has done for years.  And, although the burden ultimately falls on the athletes to make these hand-offs during the meet, it is Coach Dunn's willingness to work on them and make them an important part of the race that deserves praise.  You may have seen a fair share of "not so great" hand-offs from high schools and even Team USA at Olympics and World Championships, but Coach Dunn willing to work with the boys on this aspect of the relay once again showed yesterday.  If you missed that relay, our boys, both A and B teams, ran away with the event thanks to not only fast running, but also impeccable hand-offs.  Our A team notched the 5th fastest time in STC middle school history, .09 seconds from making it onto the record board.  Their time of 49.42 was well under the elite performance mark of 52 seconds, something the B team wasn't far off from either at 53.51.

 

I alluded to a great meet from RJ Johnson yesterday.  In his first action of the outdoor season, he logged 3 elite performances and almost a 4th, in high jump.  He was the 3rd leg of that fast 4x100 relay team and also won the sprint double in the 100/200.  His 100 time puts him 10th on the all-time STC list and his 200 time ranks him 12th.  His high jump attempts at 5-0 were close, which would have put him on the elite performance list for that event as well (18th ever to do so), so hopefully he can squeeze that one out later this season.  With a meet like that, look out for his 400 this Saturday!  RJ led the STC sweep of the 100 as Tristan Litzenburg was inches behind, right behind RJ on the all-time list at 11th.  Aedan Imbert logged his 5th individual elite performance of the year, breaking 13 in the 100 as well, ranking 21st on the STC all-time list.  Alexander Koussoglou and Emmanuel Moore gave us a perfect 5 for 5 in personal bests in the 100.  Brendan Cosby and Dax Alexander joined RJ in PR-ing in the 200, and the 400 was a big PR event for us as well with 4 of our 5 guys in the individual 400 earning a best time.  This included a big drop of over 3 seconds for Thomas Starke and a new event PR for Max Behrooz.  Aedan was runner-up in the event, just over the 1:00 mark which was impressive given that Aedan ran 3 of the first 4 events of the meet!  Speaking of the 400, 5 of our 8 relay legs in the 4x400 yielded PRs with Charlie Branch dropping almost 5 seconds, Tristan dropping 3 down to 1:02, and our distance duo of Asa White and Liam Dunn each logging a 1:04 for PR times.  We had a trio of PRs in the 800 with Asa, Arjun Anand, and a huge 7-second drop from Chris Rauchle, who may have found a new event.  The 1600 also saw a trio of PRs, and big ones.  Charlie almost ran out of his shoes (they literally had a seam bursting) to drop about 7 seconds, just 3 seconds from the elite performance mark in the event.  Jack Bodt dropped over 15 seconds off his best, basically running his lunch right out of him, and Adam Bishara added the biggest drop of the day with a 23-second improvement to break 6:00 for the first time.

 

In the field events, the dominating performances and personal bests continued.  Discus was 1st-6th (except 3rd) with 4 big personal bests as Corbett Kessel and Dax had double-digit improvements of over 11 feet and 10 feet, respectively.  Luke Bleecher cracked 50 for the first time with his 4-foot improvement and Mac McClendon had a 2-foot improvement.  Brendan won the event with his 2nd best career throw.  Long jump was also strong for us with a 1, 2, 4 finish.  Corbett and Luke also had PRs in this event.  There were a trio of personal bests in the shot put, including a 2nd NEPR on the day from Max.  Chris, along with RJ, hit a PR in the high jump.  This was Chris' first time over 4 feet, so that was a big moment for him.

 

In the score, it was a dominating performance for the Saints.  I have already mentioned some 1-2s, sweeps, 1-2-4s, so it is clear we were victorious yesterday.  In a meet where we didn't quite load up the entries as much as this Saturday to soak up points, we almost doubled the second place team.  We had 181 points to St. Bridget's 93 as the 2nd place team.  Collegiate was 3rd with 75 points.  We will have our hands full this Saturday trying to stay undefeated as we take our 17-0 record into a tough meet with some powerhouse public schools like Stafford and Matoaca, but at the end of the day, better teams and athletes help push us to better performances, which is the ultimate goal.