Published on Jan. 20, 2013 in the Boston Globe
The Woburn boys’ track team set a meet record, but that didn’t automatically give them the Division 2 James Kalperis MSTCA State Relay title Saturday. The Tanners needed a good finish in the day’s final event — the 4 x 400 — to secure their second consecutive championship at the Reggie Lewis Track and Field Center.
“It’s a thrill to see your kids that practice so hard and see the fruits of their labor,” coach Joe Curran said. “We love the relays because we’re all about team.”
The quartet of Chris Jewett, Dylan Crowley, Josh Ercolinli, and Kyle Sullivan needed to place higher than Tewksbury to ensure a place atop the podium.
As the anchor, Sullivan tried to catch the neck-and-neck race between Reading (3:27.71) and Marshfield (3:27.79), but couldn’t. However, the third-place finish (3:28.54) boosted the Tanners into first place in the team standings with 37 points.
“We have a great team, we just wanted to run hard. We were running against some great competition,” Curran said.
But Woburn already hit the record books in the 4 x 200. Jewett, Preston Gordon, Anthony Nguyen, and Gavin Wilson took .24 of a second off the meet record, crossing at 1:31.58 (Mansfield clocked a 1:31.82 in January, 2011).
“This is all I’ve ever wanted,” Wilson said of breaking the record. “This feels great. We’ve worked hard for this, very hard.”
The Tanners picked up additional points with a finish at every place level: second in the 4 x 50, third in the 4 x 800, fourth in the shuttle hurdles, fifth in long jump, and sixth in shot put.
Reading finished second with 33 points and Tewksbury was third (32 points).
In similar fashion, the 4 x 400 decided the girls’ meet. Marshfield made an impressive bid from a slower heat to grab second place with a 4:09.14.
Ellen DiPietro, Kelsey Sullivan, Olivia Geata, and Kate Spitler had to watch the seeded, final heat to see if they could hold on for the first-place finish and steal the win from North Andover.
But a 4:06.10 posted by Ashley Bjorkman, Julia Jones, Maddie Oldow, and Michaela Amerandes of Mansfield left Marshfield tied for second with Whitman-Hanson at 28 points each.
Without placing in the final race, North Andover claimed the top spot with 29 points to the surprise of coach Rick DelleChiaie.
“[Winning is] giving the girls confidence now,” DelleChiaie said. “We had Andover on Wednesday night and we were flying after that meet. I think we kind of rode that emotion into this one . . . I was trying to downplay the whole meet to them so they wouldn’t tense up.”
The Scarlet Knights claimed first in shot put, with a combined distance of 101.75 from Courtney Green, Katie McMamus, and Alexandra Layne. DelleChiaie said his high jumpers — Catherine Flaherty, Mary Lavery, and Megan McMann — were really the stars of the day, tying for third place.
Deirdre Martyn successfully anchored the sprint and distance medleys, each placing in the top three. Eleni Coufos helped Martyn into guiding the sprint team into third place (4:22.19), while the distance relay grabbed second (13:09.43).