In a battle of sophomores (the top four, and five of the top six finishers were in 10th grade), Margo Gillis raced to a surprising victory in the 800m at the All-State meet in Fitchburg Saturday. It was oddly reminiscent of Carolyn Ranti's upset win in the state meet in 2008, but unlike that race, in which Ranti was able to overtake the leaders after biding her time on the first lap, Gillis was determined to dictate the pace.
When the starter fired the gun, Gillis charged to the front and was halfway around the turn when the gun fired again to call the race back. Top seed and pre-race favorite Andrea Keklak had been involved in a collision and had gone down -- hard -- and stayed down for a sickening few moments. Keklak is nothing if not tough, and after a couple of minutes while she and the officials determined that she was ok to run, there was a restart.
On the second go-round, Gillis didn't have quite the jump on the field, but quickly moved to the lead, followed by Keklak and the rest of the field.
At 66-67 seconds, the first lap was not overly fast, and on the backstretch Keklak passed, with Newton South's Kathy O'Keefe and Tewksbury's Leanne Tucker not far off the pace. But Gillis was not done, and stayed on Keklak's shoulder until they came out of the final turn. At that point, it was anyone's race, but Gillis made it hers with one strong move to open a gap and then enough strength and guts to hold her form and hang on in the final few meters.
Gillis finished in a personal best 2:14.13, with Keklak at 2:14.52, and O'Keefe at 2:14.68. Gillis and Ranti would later team up with Emma Kornetsky and Arianna Tabatabaie to place 4th in the 4x400 meters.
Photos and videos to come. Stay tuned.
Meanwhile, Michele Kaufman was qualifying for the finals of the 100m hurdles with the fifth best time. She then proceeded to run the best hurdle race of her life, to come within the blink of an eye of running sub-15 seconds for the first time. Her time of 15:01 was a personal best, and her lean earned her third place.
3 comments:
*Michele Kaufman
*Tabatabaie
also the top six places in the girls mile were sub-5:00. i'm thinking that this is some sort of record? maybe? i mean even if its not then thats still sooooo impressive! and the top six 800 girls runners were sophomores/freshman! i cant wait to see how the 800 develops in the next couple of years, we'll be seeing some fast times!
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