NN Girls' 2011 Run Continues With D1 State Title

(More fantastic photos from the meet)

Newton North's girls indoor track team continued its run of big meet victories last night, adding the D1 State Championship to its State Relays and Dartmouth Relays wins. The Tigers (55 points) took the title for the second year in a row, besting runner-up Andover (48), and Lincoln-Sudbury (42).

After more than five hours of intense competition that featured outstanding performances, unfortunate mishaps, and dramatic reversals of fortune for both teams, the meet came down to the 4x400 relay. Newton North held a five-point lead, which meant that Andover still had a slim chance.

That chance faded as the quartet of Madi Nadeau (59.2), Margo Gillis (59.4), Meghan Bellerose (59.9), and Carla Forbes (59.1) ran a metric meet record of 3:57.71. Indeed, if Forbes hadn't left a bit early and had to check herself, it could have been a half second faster. The final event put the exclamation on the meet for North, but there were certainly moments when the outcome was in doubt...

The meet started well for the Tigers, as Emily Hutchinson, Maeve Larkin, and Lucia Grigoli all earned a total of 10 points in the high jump. In a strange moment, defending state champion and top seed Moira Cronin of Andover seemed to have plenty of clearance on her third attempt at 5-3 but clipped the bar and had to settle for three-way tie for 4th place. However, Cronin's teammate Jess Salley won the competition, clearing 5-5 on her final attempt giving Andover 14 points for the event.

In the 600, Meghan Bellerose ran a controlled race, staying off the pace in the fast first lap and then patiently working her way up to the back of the lead pack. With 150 meters to go, Bellerose moved into 4th and was able to hold that position to the line, finishing in 1:37.42 and earning 5 points.

Margo Gillis (2:59.62) also finished 4th in the 1000, holding off a determined charge by Franklin sophomore Lauren Hagen (2:59.97). For Gillis, it was her first time under 3:00 this season. At the start, Gillis briefly followed Lincoln-Sudbury senior Andrea Keklak, but sensibly let her go after about 150 meters. Keklak would go on to run a meet record 2:49.88.

Sitting on twenty points, North looked to the hurdles to add to their total. Alas, third-seeded Kayla Wong had a poor start that seemed to affect her steps to the first hurdle. She clipped it, stumbled as her trail leg hit the tartan, and went down. North's other hurdler, Amy Ren, ran a season's best 8.92 but missed qualifying for the final by a mere 0.02. With North going 0 for the hurdles, and Andover taking 2 points and another 10 with a win in the 300 from Eve Bishop, it was time to worry.

This season, North's antidote to all manner of ills has been Carla Forbes. So it was again. The sophomore had qualified for the 55 final by running a personal best 7.30 in the prelims. As the two-miles dragged on, Forbes waited.

Andover, which had been cruising along since the high jump, hit another bump in the road when top-seeded Maggie Mullins wasn't able to keep pace with Franklin's Megan Ross in the 2M. The two had been so far ahead of the pack that when Mullins fell off the pace, she wasn't aware until it was too late that Wachusett's Rebecca Skodis and Waltham's Meghan Brophy were kicking hard. The two made up a five-second deficit in the final 200m, catching Mullins in the final 30 meters. Mullins reacted, but Skodis was in full stride, and The Andover runner had to settle for third.

At 7:36 p.m. Forbes finally settled into the starting blocks for the final of the 55 dash. The gun went off, and Forbes accelerated into the lead. Boston Latin's Emma Rice was closing fast, but it seemed that Forbes had held her off. All eyes turned to the scoreboard. But what was this? The results showed Rice first with a time of 7.69 and Forbes second with 7.76. The order of the finishers seemed wrong, but what was immediately bizarre were the times. There was no way that the D1 State Final would be won in 7.69 and that Forbes would run almost half a second slower than in the prelims. In a strange way, the absurdity of it kept us from panic. In a few minutes, the correct results appeared. Forbes had won in 7.31; Rice was second in 7.36.

There was no time to dwell on either the false results or the true ones. I jotted down these notes as I watched the sequence of events:

7:36 - Forbes wins 55
7:42 - Forbes receives first place medal
7:47 - Forbes takes first jump in LJ... 18-5

That 18-5 would win the competition, so in a space of 11 minutes, the sophomore won two events and catapulted North back into the lead. (Amy Ren would add two very welcome points by hitting 16-6 on her last long jump to move into 7th.)

So now it was just survive and take care of business in the relays.

There are times when you really don't want to be anywhere near Joe Tranchita during a track meet, and watching the 4x200 when his team is messing up their exchanges is one of them. Running in the seeded heat, North was in fourth when their third runner got trapped inside coming into the exchange. She had to extricate herself, and cross back out into lane three to make the handoff, which was not pretty. The loss of precious tenths of a second hurt North, as Andover, lying fifth, ran them down and edged them by four-hundredths of a second.

That set up the 4x400, where North had all its aces.





2011 MA D1 Championships - Boys and Girls Results