Wisnaskas, Girls and Boys 4x400 Solidify State Qualifiers against Holliston and Medway

After a weekend of relay races in Providence, the Norton Track & Field Team returned to the friendly confines of Wheaton College for TVL action against Holliston and Medway. Highlighted by a handful of personal bests, the Lady Lancers won convincingly over Holliston, 52-33, while falling just short against Medway, 40-46. On the boys' side, several TVL Top Five performances led the boys' sweep of Medway, 49-37, and Holliston, 46-40.

Girls (5-2)

The Lady Lancers were paced evenly throughout both meets. Starting off strong in the 55 Hurdles, Lily Holloway (1st vs. HOL, 3rd vs. MW; 55m H - 9.71) bettered her TVL seed in pacing teammate Mary Diestel (3rd vs. HOL; 55m H - 10.85) to points against Holliston. Diestel would later go on to the vertical jumps and take honors in both meets (2nd vs. HOL, 3rd vs. MW; HJ - 4'-10") in the high jump, confirming the fifth highest jump performance in the TVL heading into State Relays. In the hurdle-less sprints, Carly Murphy (1st vs. HOL, 3rd vs. MW; 55m - 8.15) ran a PR just shy of the TVL Top 15, leading Julia Newell (2nd vs. HOL; 55m - 8.21) to a near sweep of the event against Holliston. Whereas in the longer sprints, mid-distance stud Julia Palin (2nd vs. HOL, 2nd vs. MW; 300m - 44.33) ran her first 300 race of her career, good enough to debut at 12th in the TVL Rankings. 4x400 teammate Kylie Dion (3rd vs. HOL, 3rd vs. MW; 300m - 46.24) joined Palin in scoring in the long sprints on Monday.

Senior Abbey O'Brien sprinting to the 55m finish

In the field events, sophomore Erica Ransom (1st vs. MW, 2nd vs. HOL; SP - 27'-4.5") picked an excellent time to PR heading into relays, scoring points in both meets and moving her TVL seed up to 7th, only two spots behind teammate Michaela Whiteside (2nd vs. MW, 3rd vs. HOL; SP - 26'-8") on the year. Ransom and Whiteside will be joined by senior captain Ali Whitman (SP - 22'-11.75"; 2nd vs. HOL, 2nd vs. MW; 1,000m - 3:30.7) in the Shot Put Relay this weekend at the State Relays. Whitman, who was awaiting her throw, left the event to compete in the 1,000m run, placed second overall, and then returned to launch her farthest through of the night (22'-11.75").

Senior Ali Whitman lining up to throw prior to her 1,000m race

For the Lancer Distance girls, performances were led off by Isabella Pietrasiewicz's (1st vs. MW, 1st vs. HOL; Mile - 5:31) PR in the mile, improving both her TVL seed to a tie for 5th (with teammate Katie Bradley) as well as her automatic state-qualifier. Heading off the mid-distance races, Murphy came back from the 55m dash to nab a double second place finish (2nd vs. HOL, 2nd vs, MW; 600m - 1:47.74), just a few seconds ahead of teammate Hannah Kubinski (3rd vs. HOL, 3rd vs. MW; 600m - 1:51.33) in another near-Lancer sweep.

Isabella Pietrasiewicz grabs the lead in the Girls Mile

In the only slightly shorter distance race, Katie Bradley (1st vs. MW, 1st vs. HOL; 1,000m - 3:12.6) ran a solid solo-effort to pace teammate Ali Whitman to a 1-2 finish in the 1,000 against Holliston and Medway. And finally, in racing her first two mile of the season, Hannah Delea ran a gutsy effort (2nd vs. HOL, 2nd vs. MW; 2 Mile - 14:06.1) to finish off the Lady Lancer scoring heading into the relays. Looking to improve on their seed with TVL Championships only two weeks away, the quartet of Bradley, Pietrasiewicz, Dion and Palin led almost from start to finish, posting the top time on the night (4:21.7). The Lady Lancers' time moves the relay up to fourth in the TVL and improves their state-qualifying time by almost five seconds.

Dion hands off to Palin to anchor the Lancers to their final win on the night

Other Non-Scoring Results

Shot Put
Whitman - 22'11.75"
Landry - 22'-1.75"
S. Kubinski - 18'-0.5"

High Jump
LeClaire - 3'-10"
McKenney - NH

55 Meter Hurdles
Delea - 10.88
Dolack - 12.07

55 Meter Dash
Sousa-Schumosic - 7.7 (PR)
McKenney - 8.1
O'Brien - 8.3
Shea - 8.36
Rodriguez - 8.37
Hickey - 8.5
Jill Perkins - 8.7
Nardone - 8.9
Dolack - 8.9 (PR)
Julia Perkins - 10.1

Mile
LeClaire - 7:06

600 Meters
Schepis - 1:53

300 Meters
Loring - 47.44
Shea - 49.0
Nardone - 51.35
O'Brien - 51.7

1,000 Meters
S. Kubinski - 3:43

4x200 Meter Relay - 2:06
Hickey - 31.3
Loring - 29.1
Rodriguez - 30
McKenney - 34

Boys (5-2)

The Men of Norton wasted no time in establishing their presence against Medway and Holliston. A future force to be reckoned with, freshman Paul Wisnaskas (1st vs. HOL, 1st vs. MW; 55m H - 8.55) once again surprised all, and perhaps even himself. Having only three hurdle races under his belt, Wisnaskas again posted Norton's top hurdle time of the evening, this time in a state-qualifying performance. Additionally, Wisnaskas's 8.55 is also good enough for third overall in the TVL as of this posting. Right behind him running a personal best, teammate Corey Stalters (2nd vs. HOL, 2nd vs. MW; 55m H - 8.77) continued to improve his TVL seed, moving up to 7th in the league, while Jacob Peers (3rd vs. MW; 55m H - 9.25) grabbed the brooms to complete the sweep on Medway in the hurdles. Following the hurdles, Zach Lerner (3rd vs. HOL, 3rd vs. MW; 55m - 7.51) did his part in the sprints, earning two third place finishes against both Holliston and Medway.

From Lanes 1 (Stalters) and 4 (Wisnaskas), Lancers dominate the Hurdles

Completing the sprints on the evening, senior captain Ian Pereira (1st vs. MW, 2nd vs. HOL; 300m - 37.40) returned back to the 300 since last racing in December, just missing the win against Holliston by 0.02 seconds. Joining him on the podium, Sam McGrath (3rd vs. MW, 3rd vs. HOL; 300m - 39.67) ran another TVL Top 15 time, as the Lancers own the top seed (Pereira - 37.37) 10th (McGrath - 39.65) and 13th (Aidan Lerner - 39.75) in the mid-sprint event on the year. Only 300 meters more, Ben Pescod (2nd vs. MW, 2nd vs. HOL; 600m - 1:38.93) shined in the 600 meters, running a personal best in the process.

From the shot put circle, the Lancers were led by another consistent throwing performance by Jackson Weaver (2nd vs. MW, 3rd vs. HOL; SP - 30'-9"). Only one inch behind, teammate Nicholas Denham (3rd vs. MW; SP - 30'-8") pointed against Medway in another personal best throw as he continues to improve as the schedule begins to move into the championship portion of the season. While in the jumps, Alex Wisnaskas (1st vs. MW, 2nd vs. HOL; HJ - 5'-4") burst onto the season in his first high jump competition of the late season. His 5'-4" was good enough to move him into the TVL's Top 15. Not alone, senior captain Pat Bingel (3rd vs. MW; HJ - 5'-0") squeezed onto the podium prior to his Mile run.

Matt Kurland, Tom Brogan and Andrew Barrick stay loose prior to throwing

In the mile, junior Austin Carroll (1st vs. MW, 1st vs. HOL; Mile - 4:50) solo-efforted a win while leading Bingel to a personal best (2nd vs. HOL, 3rd vs. MW; Mile - 4:56) in a sprint finish to squeeze into the TVL's Top 15 (14th place). Continuing the slew of personal bests before State Relays, Ethan Tetrault (1st vs. HOL, 2nd vs. MW; 1,000m - 2:55.32) and Sean Wynne (2nd vs. HOL, 3rd vs. MW; 1,000m - 2:59.42) dropped considerable time on their 1,000m personal bests. Both working together, a mad sprint to the finish led Wynne to get under 3:00 while Tetrault muscled out a tough early pace to a PR. To cap the distance side of the events, Dj Nihill's (1st vs. MW, 1st vs. HOL; 2 Mile - 11:00.99) debut in the two mile was the talk of the meet heading into the 4x400. Having been in the chase pack for most of the race, Nihill turned on a kick the likes of which few have seen. At the bell lap, Nihill began a sprint that was unofficially clocked at 29.0, passing his chase pack and the race leaders to grab a convincing and dominant four second win.

15 laps prior to the kick that will have the TVL talking for years to come

Needing the W in the 4x400 relay to beat Holliston, the Lancer Men did not fault under pressure. An early Holliston lead after the first leg, despite the tough run by McGrath (57.88), was quickly covered by A. Lerner (56.64) and obliterated by Pereira (52.5). With only the clock to race, Paul Wisnaskas finished his state-qualifying day splitting a 55.6 to lead the Norton 4x400 to the easy 3:42.01 win, with plenty of time to spare. That time automatically qualified NHS for the 4x400 meter relay at the Division 4 State Championships.

Paul Wisnaskas pulling away at the bell lap on the 4x400 anchor leg

Other Non-Scoring Results

Shot Put
R. Carroll - 26'-3"
Castelluzzi - 24'-9.5"
Kurland - 23'-10.5"
Barrick - 23'-8.5"
Brogan - 22'-4.5"

High Jump
Stalters - NH

55 Meter Hurdles
Peers - 9.25 (PR)
Bamford - 11.41

55 Meters
Diestel - 7.73
Lebel - 7.5 (PR)
Adams - 7.7 (PR)
Kent - 7.7 (PR)
Deady - 8.0 (PR)
Bamford - 8.1
Berthao - 8.6
Shea - 11.0

Mile
Janineh - 5:21.27
Smith - 5:25.14
A. Wisnaskas - 5:47.74 (SB)
M. Anderson - 6:04.39

300 Meters
A. Lerner - 39.81
O'Brien - 40.66
Z. Lerner - 41.0
Kubinski - 42.2
Kent - 45.0
Deady - 46.5
Lebel - 47.4
Owens - 48.0
Shea - 59.2

1,000 Meters
Morabito - 3:06.68
Wilson  - 3:17.57 (SB)
McNeil - 3:18.52 (PR)
Denham - 3:37.94
T. Anderson - 4:10.10

4x400 Meter Relay B - 4:03.5
Kubinski - 60.4
Diestel - 63.4
Pescod - 60.4
O'Brien - 59.3


Up Next: The Lancers head to the Reggie Lewis Center in Boston to compete in the Division 4 State Relays on Saturday. Bus will be leaving at 7:45 am.

-Coach Al