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| They did it! L-R: Kylie Dion, Kirsten Loring, Isabella Pietrasiewicz, and Julia Newell |
The meet started off with the throws as Michaela Whiteside looked to improve on her states seeding for the shot put. Though still consistent with her throwing this season, Whiteside was off her season's best set at the TVL Showcase, as she finished ninth overall in the field with a toss of 30'-1.75". While, competing in the lone individual running event, Eve Rodriguez (46.13) made it through a short warm-up to place 40th in the 60-girl field.
The focus of the long meet came down to the girls sprint medley relay. The 200-200-400-800 format made for a sprinter-friendly relay that the Lady Lancers took full advantage of. Norton fielded an "A" team of Julia Newell, Kirsten Loring, Kylie Dion and Isabella Pietrasiewicz and a "B" team of Rodriguez, Lindsey Bingel, Heather Kurland and Megan Cross. The goals for each team were to gain a little bit of post-season experience along with attempting to qualify for the New Balance Indoor Nationals Emerging Elite SMR, by hitting the 4:19.00 standard. Out of the second seeded section, the "A" team had both Burlington and North Andover leading the pack looking to hit the standard. Flawless handoffs between Newell, Loring and Dion kept the Lancers on the pace, with Pietrasiewicz receiving the baton needing to run better than 2:20 in the 800m to qualify. Inching back to the group, Pietrasiewicz passed Amherst and made ground on Burlington and North Andover. The spread out field ultimately pushed her to an unofficial 2:19.75 leg, getting the Lancers into a sixth place finish, but most importantly, dipping under the 4:19.00 standard in hitting 4:18.93 officially.
In the last section, the "B" team still put together a valiant effort in the Nationals-contending field. A stellar split by Rodriguez almost caught Bingel off guard and made for a very close handoff at the end of the zone. But Bingel retrieved the stick and got it back over to Kurland and Cross as the two ran two tough splits as the rest of the field separated. The "B" team managed to run an impressive 4:39.63.
Boys
Looking to also improve on his state's seed, senior captain Corey Stalters ran the 55m hurdles to kick off the meet for the boys. After a 8.30 preliminary heat, Stalters mustered an 8.23 in a somewhat uncompetitive finals to earn a sixth place finish. Following Stalters wrapping up on the infield was fellow senior captain Austin Carroll and sophomore Sean Wynne. Both in the seeded section, Wynne hung with the quick pace through the halfway point but faded as the field weeded out. Still, Wynne finished in an impressive 4:52.54, only three seconds off his personal best set last week. Meanwhile, Carroll faced an inconsistent front of the field but found himself in position for the win after making a chase for the leader with a three laps to go. Despite being passed with a couple runners, Carroll ran a phenomenal 4:38.22 to finish fourth overall, a personal best, and only five seconds off the school record.
Carroll then finished up the meet in the boys sprint medley relay. Stalters led the team off with a sub-25 200m leg, handing off to CJ Liebherr, who ran the same before handing off to Paul Wisnaskas. Running on rarely fresh legs, Wisnaskas unofficially ran the fastest 400m split on the season, in 51.50. Carroll, doubling back from the mile, still moved to a hard-fought 2:07 800m to finish fifth in the event in 3:48.47.
Up Next: Championship season continues as the Lancers head to the MIAA Division 4 State Championships on Sunday. The bus leaves NHS at 10:45 am; field events start at 1:00 pm with track events running a half-hour later.
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