Published in the Daily Hampshire Gazette on Feb. 7, 2015
NORTHAMPTON — The Amherst Regional girls indoor track & field team learned the importance of alternates at arguably the best and worst time of the year.
With two top sprinters pulling hamstrings early in Friday’s PVIAC championship meet at Smith College, the Hurricanes had to shuffle their lineup and pull girls off the bench in order to repeat as champions with 76 points. Northampton took second with 70.
“They say it’s an adventure when things start to go wrong,” Amherst coach Eric Nazar said. “We have to pull our alternates off the bench who didn’t even think they would be running, Eva (Feyre Febonio) and Neosha (Narayanan), and put them in the relays. … It was a real team effort.”
All of Amherst’s relay teams were changed after the ’Canes lost Kanya Brown and Ariel Christie to injury. With the Hurricanes holding a four-point lead, the meet came down to the final race, the 4×400-meter relay. Amherst didn’t need to win the last relay, just place higher than Northampton to clinch the meet. The Hurricanes took second in 4 minutes, 19.66 seconds, while the Blue Devils took third in 4:22.39.
“We knew coming down to those last events that it was us and Hamp,” Nazar said. “We said we gotta get it done in the 4×400 and boy they got it done.”
Juliana Brissette had already accepted two ribbons, winning the mile in 5:25.29 and placing second in the 1,000, when she took the final handoff for Amherst. East Longmeadow edged ahead on the final straightaway, but Brissette stayed focused and kept plenty of distance between her and Northampton’s Alexandra Dibrindisi, who had fought her way up to third place. A final kick by Brissette on the last curve sealed Amherst’s second consecutive PVIAC championship.
“I switch off between the 4×400 and 4×800, but we were trying to score as many points as we could so we put me in the 4×400,” Brissette said. “It felt like, ‘I have to just give it all I have. This could determine the meet.’ That’s what was running through my mind.”
Brissette knew she was going to run the 4×400 weeks ago, but teammate Maya Sands Bliss only expected to run the third leg of the 4×400, not also the 4×200 after taking fifth in the long jump with a personal-best 15 feet, 10 inches.
“I was thrown in the 4×200 30 minutes before it happened,” Sands Bliss said. “It was kind of exciting. I’d run it before, but I wasn’t expecting to run it and I’d never run first leg so that was a little different than normal, but I knew I had to give it my all if we were going to win.”
Sands Bliss replaced Brown in the 4×200 and helped lead the Hurricanes to second place in the relay.
Brown reaggravated her hamstring in the 55 dash, which she took third in 7.56 seconds, ahead of teammate Valdimira Fernandes in fourth. Nazar opted to pull Brown from the 300, the same race that Christie later tweaked the same muscle in. Christie finished ninth in 45.15.
Frances Duncan won the 1,000 for Amherst, Jessemie Rietkerk took second in the 600, Meg Rhodes was fourth in high jump and the 4×800 finished third.
Northampton entered the meet after an undefeated dual meet season.
“You never know what to expect with a big track meet,” Blue Devils coach Brandon Palmer said. “You can take a look at the performance list and be like, ‘Oh, wow, we’ve got a real good shot,’ and showing up is just the whole other 110 percent. … I think the kids gave it everything they got. I don’t think they left anything on the track tonight.”
Maggie Mahoney led the mile through seven laps, but was caught late and edged out by Brissette in the final steps. Mahoney returned in the 2-mile and took third. Sierra Loomis won the long jump with a leap of 16-10, took second in the 55 hurdles and third in the 300.
Dibrindisi ran a personal-best 42.96 to win the 300 and took third in the long jump before closing the gap in the 4×400.
South Hadley scored in five events and finished fifth with 37 points.
The Tigers won the 4×800 in 10:39.05 and doubled up in the mile and 2-mile. Mackenzie Werenski and Mikayla Kelly were fifth and sixth in the mile respectively, while in the 2-mile Serena Sarage was second and Werenski fifth. Claudia Menard was third in 600 and Gabrielle Schwalm was fourth in the 1,000 for South Hadley.
Holyoke Catholic’s Julia Carroll took third in the mile and third in the 1,000 as the Gaels finished ninth with 12 points.