Tigers Cap Dream Season With State Title

At about 5:40 Friday afternoon at her first Massachusetts Indoor State Meet, Newton North freshman Carla Forbes stood at the end of the runway getting ready for her last of six jumps in the long jump competition. She had certainly jumped well up to that point, well enough to have secured 3rd place and six points behind Pembroke's Berkeley Hall and Triton's Deanna Latham, both of whom had jumps over 18-7.

Six points was not bad, but the Tigers were at that moment trailing Newton South by 18 points. A half hour earlier, Newton South's Kathy O'Keefe and Melanie Fineman had run wonderful races -- both well under 5:00 -- to take 1-2 in the girls mile to give South a huge head start on the race for the team championship.

Now Forbes had to jump. By coincidence, as she started her approach, North junior Margo Gillis and the rest of the field for the fast heat of the girls 1000m were about to be called to their marks. Seeded 5th, Gillis was hoping to improve on that and gain back a few points on North's crosstown competition.

Forbes sprinted toward the board, hit it perfectly, lifted, and flew, landing 18 feet 8 and three-quarter inches away. It wasn't official yet, but after Hall's and Latham's final attempts, Carla Forbes had won the state championship.

Meanwhile, Gills had boldly taken the lead in the 1000, and then relinquished it again after two laps to Bishop Feehen's Jenn Thomas. On the backstretch of the penultimate lap, DI Champion and top seed Andrea Keklak strongly took the lead, with Gillis in pursuit. Keklak flew, but Gillis was not dropped. With a lap to go, the two had opened a gap on the rest of the field. That final 200 meters was as intense as it gets. Keklak went to another gear, but Gillis hung on around the final turn. Into the homestretch, Gillis finally pulled even on the outside, and then inched ahead. With 15 meters to go, Keklak tried to find another gear, but with no gears left, she made a tiny stumble instead, and it was over. In the space of three minutes, North had seen two upsets and two individual state championships.

That wasn't the end of the meet by any means, but it was the sign that North would be the team to beat this year. The truly shocking result would come later in the 55, where Forbes was seeded a distant 11th. In the prelims, Forbes ran a PR 7.34 to make the finals. In the finals, she ran another PR 7.27 (!) to take 3rd. Those six unexpected points would end up being the difference in the meet.

Statistic of the night:

Points scored at the state meet by Carla Forbes: 16
Points scored by all other freshmen girls from all other schools: 0.4

The meet still wasn't over. Bishop Feehan and Mansfield were within striking distance with the relays coming up. But the Tigers clinched the win by taking 3rd in the 4x800 relay. Maggie Heffernan led off with a solid leg of 2:22.9 to put the Tigers in the thick of things. Arianna Tabatabaie also split 2:22, bringing the Tigers from 4th to 2nd. Jaya Tripathi ran 2:28, and passed off in 3rd, but right with the second-place team. Gillis anchored, and gave chase but settled for 3rd in the end. With 32 points, the Tigers were home free.

In the end, it didn't matter that the 4x200 team messed up the first exchange and was disqualified. North's 32 points were unassailable. Mansfield finished 2nd with 26 points, followed by Bishop Feehan (25), and Newton South (23).

All-State Meet Results on Cool Running (Girls team scores not yet posted)