It would be an overstatement to say that the unthinkable happened yesterday, when the Weymouth boys accomplished what no other Bay State team has been able to accomplish since 2000 by beating Newton North in an outdoor track meet. The remarkable thing about the Tigers unbeaten streak is that they won many close meets during that run, stepping up to challenge after challenge from very good teams.
But yesterday was Weymouth's day. The Wildcats won 72-63 and you don't do that against NN without both individual stars and depth in all events. Weymouth dominated the hurdles (sweeping both the 110 and 400 hurdles), with sophomore Tyler Mulcahy recording two wins to go with a 3rd-place in the long jump. The Wildcats also swept the javelin and long jump, and picked up one of the most unexpected points of all when senior Sam Calley took 3rd in the shot put ahead of 50-footer Conor Ebbs.
Weymouth won 5 of the 8 individual track events. Except for the ridiculous league prohibition against distance doubling, Steve Sollowin and Chris Dooley likely would have added to the Weymouth point total, "settling" for single wins in the 800 and mile. Why is it that an athlete like Mulcahy is allowed to compete in four events, contributing 11 of a possible 20 points to Weymouth's effort, while Sollowin, one of the top middle distance runners in the state is relegated to a supporting role in the mile and 4x400 relay, for a maximum of 6.25 points.
But one happy result was that it made for a great two-mile, with Jake Gleason running 9:58.5 for the win over Weymouth's Kody Crawford.
North won both relays, but by the time Ezra Lichtman, Ryan Kwan, Justin Keefe, and Isaiah Penn got the stick around first in the 4x400 (3:34.9), the meet had long since been decided.
By the way, Newton North Track historian Josh Seeherman wrote to dispel any notion of a 13-year streak. he writes:
"...the last outdoor loss was to Brookline in the Spring of 2000 - ten years and not twelve like some folks are saying. That Brookline team featured the Abdur-Rahim brothers, who were very very talented multi-event athletes..."
So ten years. Still an amazing, impressive record of excellence.
We'll give the last word to Coach Blackburn, as quoted in the lengthy article in the Newton paper this morning (below):
"I'm very proud of how we've done in both indoors and outdoors... I think if you combine them, it's something like 150 wins counting indoor and outdoor for the past 12 years. And obviously there's pride because you know how hard the guys worked to get that. Each group didn't want to be the ones to lose, and that kind of motivated people every year. I think this year it was just a little too much to overcome against a good team like Weymouth."
Article in Newton Tab (incorrectly mentions 13-year streak)
Meet Results on athletic.net
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5 comments:
Girls meet?
North's girls continued their own very impressive (but oddly less talked about) dual meet streak with a 71-65 win over Weymouth. BY the looks of it on athletic.net, almost 40 state qualifiers came from this dual meet alone.
North girls should be a force to be reckoned with at all states.
Our guys are just going to have to work harder to start another streak, realizing that Jed Carpenter is not walking thru that door, and Dan King is not walking thru that door, and Jon Wofsy is not walking thru that door.
Time for the tigers to bounce back. Nobody should think for even a second that Weymouth is going to take our spot as the most dominant team in the league.
Back to work boys. Let's get it.
Great comments by Coach Blackburn and the Tiger athletes in the article. Clearly class acts. Certainly a streak like that has gone on becasue of great coaching and athletes BUT I also think it happens because of going about it the right way. The Tiger coaches and athletes have done that and I try to have my program emulate that process.
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