North Boys Survive Weymouth on Strength of SP, 4x400

Well, I was wrong about this one.

I thought Newton North's well-balanced attack would be too much for Weymouth to handle. Instead, the Wildcats had the better meet, outscoring North in the distances, earning tough points with numerous second- and third-places, and riding a nearly perfect night from Tyler Mulcahy (two firsts, two very close seconds) to keep pace with the Tigers.

But in the end, North had two weapons Weymouth didn't have -- Mike Bower's cadre of shot putters, and the talents of Isaiah Penn.

The meet began with Weymouth's Steve Sollowin winning a nifty battle in the mile against Justin Keefe. Justin kept pace through 1200m, but in the last two laps, Sollowin kicked away to finish in 4:24.28, the third fastest time in the state this season, with Keefe at 4:29.87.

Ezra Lichtman won the 1000 with no problem, and Penn followed suit in the 600. In both races, however, Weymouth took 2nd and 3rd, and Weymouth maintained a narrow lead heading into the shorter events.

In the 300, Mulcahy very nearly pulled the upset of the night, running down Terrell Doyle in the final straightaway. Had the race been two meters longer, Mulcahy would have been first, but Doyle hit the actual finish line a mere two-hundredths of a second ahead of the hard-charging Weymouth sprinter. With Ben Clark taking third, North had it's first lead in the track events, albeit a narrow one.

The 2-mile was fun to watch -- for Weymouth fans. Weymouth's Nolan Parsley calmly followed North's Dan Ranti for the first 3000 meters before unleashing a very effective kick over the last lap to take the win. Parsley's winning time was 9:54.79, about three seconds ahead of Ranti, but it seemed like much more as Parsley was still pulling away when he crossed the line. North sophomore David Demerest took 3rd for the Tigers, breaking 11:00 in his first 2M of the season.

On the infield, Mulcahy won the hurdles for Weymouth with Young Guang and Nick Fofana taking 2nd and 3rd. North got a welcome win from Nate Menninger in the 55 dash (6.95) and James Igumba picked up 3rd place just ahead of Guang.

Before and after all this excitement, the field events had been trending in favor of North. In the long jump, Mulcahy won with a jump of 19-3, with North's Tylor Hart and Nick Fofana taking 2nd and 3rd. It was the same three athletes scoring in the high jump, but with Hart clearing 5-11 for the win, and Mulcahy at 5-9 for second.

That left the shot put, and Mike Bowers' crew swamped Weymouth and everyone else in the league, taking the top four places. The North throwers were led by "Boss of the Toss" Swardick Mayanja, who popped a 52-0.75 throw to win. Young Guang was over 48' for second, and Ryan Donovan took 3rd.

The sweep would prove decisive. In no other event did either team take even 1st and 2nd, let alone sweep. Other than the shot put, the teams were very evenly matched:

     NN   Wey
1M    4    5
1000  5    4
600   5    4
300   6    3
2M    4    5
55H   4    5
55    6    3
HJ    6    3
LJ    4    5
---  --   --
     44   37

But with nine points in the shot, North couldn't be caught.

In a way, it's too bad that the meet didn't come down to the relay, because that race took a dramatic turn when North dropped the baton on a middle leg and fell several seconds behind the Weymouth team. When Sollowin took the baton for the Wildcats' final leg, he enjoyed a 3-4 second lead. But North had Penn running last, and the North senior blasted out an arena-rocking come-from-behind tell-this-to-your-grandchildren anchor leg. His first 200 was 23-flat, cutting the deficit to five meters. Although tiring on the final lap, Penn kept closing the gap and went by Sollowin on the final turn. I had Penn's split as 50-flat.

Next up for North is their final Carey Division meet of the season against Needham on January 27th.