Scenes From the All-State Meet

Monday, 4:08 pm, and I was still in Burlington without a car.

But I had my running shoes, good weather, and a tailwind. With all those advantages, I covered the nearly five miles to Winchester Center in 33 minutes, arriving exactly one minute before the inbound commuter train to North Station. From there, it was a short walk to the Orange line and then I was on my way to Reggie Lewis Center -- too late to see the mile, but in time for the 600.

So my experience was like the punch line to the old joke:

"How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice!"
"How do you get to the Reggie Lewis Center? Run Faster!"

---

Rather than describe every event, I'd like to write about a few events that really stood out as highlights for me. In some cases, the performance itself stood out; in others, it was the performer who left me impressed.

Here are five events from the state meet that struck me as particularly memorable:

Girls 1000m

As expected, the girls 1000m was the race of the night, featuring a rematch between the D1 champion (Lincoln-Sudbury's Emily Mepham) and runner-up (Newton North's Carolyn Ranti). Mepham has had a wonderful year so far, and had won last week's race with a brilliant kick.

Ranti, who had been working on her start all week, exploded off the line and had the clear lead before she was halfway around the first turn. Once in first, she didn't let it go to waste, as she covered the first 200m in 32 seconds, the first 400m in 66, and hit the 600 in 1:43. By then, both Ranti and Mepham were well clear of the field. On the fourth lap, Mepham took the lead for the first time. Considering the tempo of the race, Mepham looked wonderfully smooth -- showing a perfect balance of speed, endurance, and acceleration. As Mepham poured it on, one had to wonder if Ranti would fade, finally to be devoured by the petite piranhas in the chase pack. But in spite of her early pacemaking, Ranti continued to maintain her speed, and when she passed 800 m in 2:18.9, she was still only about 5-7m behind Mepham. Incredibly, neither one slowed down in the final lap. One expected to see a crack, a fissure, a disturbance in form, or some other obvious and telling sign of distress. But instead, these two superb runners continued to extend their lead over the rest of the field. Mepham crossed the line in 2:53.09, the US#6 time, while Ranti actually appeared to gain back 1-2m in the final straightaway, and finished in 2:54.27, A PR by five seconds, a NN school record, and the US#9 time.

Behind them, Andover's Colleen Shannon placed third in 3:00.15, leading a mass finish in which five runners crossed the line within 8/10ths of a second. Those tenths of a second and Shannon's six points would turn out to be the difference in the meet for Andover, but none of us knew that at the time. For Lincoln-Sudbury, the 1000m was a mixed result. Mepham's run was one of the highlights of the meet, but three other Lincoln-Sudbury girls were in the race and none of them scored, including defending state champion Molly Binder. (She would have another chance in the 4 x 400 relay.)

Boys 600

I had seen the performance, 1:20.93, sitting atop the state top-50 list in the boys 600, and I had wondered, "Who is this kid from Woburn?" I wasn't quite prepared for seeing Ryad Bencheikh in full stride.

Bencheikh, tall and skinny, loped through the first two laps content to follow. As every other runner in the field strained, he glided until about 150 meters to go, when he simply and without any apparent effort blew past the leaders, making the best 600 runners in the state look heavy and slow. He won going away in 1:21.93.

No Massachusetts runner has ever gone sub 1:50 for 800 in high school, but Bencheikh, only a junior, looks capable of it.

Girls 2-Mile

Normally, the unseeded heat of the 2-mile in a state level competition brings a lull in the intensity and drama of the meet. But not yesterday. Newton South's Kelsey Karys, owner of a 10:48 this season, had landed in the unseeded heat after rising out of her sickbed and running a flu-ish 11:27 at the D1 meet the week before, barely qualifying. The Newton South junior knew that, healthy, she would have a chance to score points for her team, but that she would have to run solo to do it. So she took off at the gun. Running alone most of the way, Karys split the mile in just over 5:30, and finished in 11:08. Would it be good enough?

In the seeded heat, there was no question was going to make the pace. Emily Jones, who owned the country's top two times this winter, started fast and didn't let up. In the highly competitive seeded heat, it looked to this observer as though the rest of the field went out too fast. That pack included Needham's Emily Lipman, Natick's Becca White, and a half-dozen other girls who had run close to Kelsey's time in previous meets. However, they were running more like 10:40 pace, a little dangerous. After a few laps of this, Jones was so far off the front that the rest of the pack seemed to settle down. But perhaps the damage had already been done. As Jones romped through the mile in 5:12, the pace began to take its toll on the other runners. Eventually, Jones would lap the field, responding to the cheers of the crowd. When she crossed the line in 10:30.41, it was a personal best, a meet record, and another US#1 time.

More than 40 seconds behind, Becca White was winning a tough stretch battle over Marlborough's Ally Oram (who was DQ'd for something that happened in those final meters). White's time of 11:13.30 was impressive, considering the early pace, but Karys' time had held up, earning her 8 points for Newton South.

Boys 4x800

I've been watching Gloucester's Liam Anastasia-Murphy since he was a freshman, and I always thought of him as a kid with a great kick. Maybe I was overly influenced by watching his brother, Sean, race, and in particular watching him run down George McArdle with an ungodly kick in the 2001 Mass State XC meet.

But the younger brother can do more than kick. Anastasia-Murphy ran two tremendously tough races on Monday, and he led most of the first and all of the second. In the 1000, Anastasia-Murphy took on D2 rival and uber-speedster Brett Sullivan of Woburn. The kid forom Gloucester decided that the only way he could win was by making the race fast from the first step. So he ran at the front, giving everyone else a free ride for four laps. In the end, Sullivan was too good and put the hammer down in the middle of the final backstretch, winning in 2:30.01. Anastasia-Murphy didn't falter, he just couldn't match Sullivan's speed, and finished a strong second in 2:30.55.

A couple of hours later, Anastasia-Murphy took the baton for the final leg of the 4x800 relay a step ahead of Brookline's Robert Gibson, winner of the 2-Mile earlier in the evening. Once again, Anastasia-Murphy had to contend with a superstar, and once again he never hesitated, but hammered away for four laps, finally dropping Gibson in the final 100 meters.

No flashy, exciting kicks off slow paces, but guts, guts, and more guts.

Kostadinov 3rd in Long Jump

Finally, a quick word of congratulations for Newton North's long jump team, and especially Ivan Kostadinov, who broke 22 feet in the long jump for the first time.

One of these days, Kostadinov is going to figure out how not to lose speed in his final three steps, hit the board right, jump 23 feet, and win the Outdoor State Championship -- unless of course Adam Bao or Sam Arsenault finishes ahead of him.