Andover, Mass – Athletes at the Division 1 Eastern Mass. Championships could not have asked for better racing weather, with temperatures just above 70 degrees and clear skies above. Due to a recent MIAA realignment, the addition of powerhouse Mansfield, promised an exciting day of track and field. The boys side featured all out duel to the end between SJP, BC High, Acton-Boxborough and the aforementioned D1 rookies Mansfield. In the end, St. John's Prep came out with 49 points and the win by 1 point over Boston College High School and Mansfield who tied at 48 points.
The boys two-mile stepped onto the track and opened up the meet with solid performances. In a race featuring four athletes under 9:30, Peabody’s Drew Fossa came through to win the deuce in a time of 9:24.35. Shouldering him to a close finish was Mansfield’s Dan Romano at 9:24.50 (scoring an important first 8 points for his team), and Lowell’s Johnny Abraham at 9:26.21.
Following the two-mile was another grueling event to open the day, the 400m hurdles. LS’s returning State Open champion, Ben Colello, took the event in a swift MA #1 and US #34 54.61. New England champion in the 300H, Irvin Johnson crossed the line over a second later at 55.82, with Andover taking an impressive 3rd and 4th behind them (MA#4 ranked Sebastian Silveira at 55.98 and Sean Caveney at 57.16). It’s highly probable that this race was an early foreshadowing of the State Open final.
In the mile, Gloucester’s Everest Crawford cruised to a 4:20.67 victory, sitting with the field and then unleashing a devastating kick towards the end to finish more than three seconds ahead of his nearest competitors, Lowell’s Randy Nong at 4:23.96 and Needham’s Adrian Amaya at 4:24.38.
The boys 400m dash promised to be a barnburner before the athletes even stepped foot on the track. Going into the race, many of the top seeds had yet to lose over a distance of 400 meters. The eventual winner, Weymouth’s Dave Harrison, prevailed over an extremely talented field (five runners under 50 seconds) with a quick clocking and MA #4 49.01. He was followed, half a second later, by Malden’s Kingdolphe Julien at 49.42, who out leaned Saint John’s Prep’s Joe Luongo at 49.50, who scored SJs first points in the running events. Sophomore Jeffrey Santos of Brookline finished fourth with a still-formidable time of 49.57.
The quick times did not relent as the day progressed, as the 200 dash featured Bridgewater-Raynham’s sophomore phenom Abu Ceesay, who scorched the field with an MA #4 22.04. Lawrence’s Jose Adams followed shortly after with a 22.30 and CRL’s Dashawn Velez took third over Billerica’s Kevin Harris in a tie to the hundredth at 22.64, which had to be broken to the thousandth of a second.
The 800 also proved to be a deep event, with Billerica’s PJ Garmon at an MA #2 time of 1:54.75, with his 1000 meter stamina besting BC High’s Justin Marcantonio’s 600 meter speed. Marcantonio finished at 1:56.27, followed by Mansfield sophomore Jack Crawford, who clocked an impressive time of 1:56.68.
The next event, the 110 hurdles, was won by one of the most outstanding performers of the meet, Newton North’s Nick Fofana. With BC High’s Jordan Samuels (MA #1 hurdler and triple jumper) out with an injury, Fofana buckled down in the final to clock a massive PR and MA #2 time of 14.48 to beat out Brockton’s Deon Raper (14.54) and LS’s Ben Collelo, who came off of his victory in the 400H to run an MA #4 time of 14.57. Fofana also took first place in the javelin and tied for sixth in the high jump.
The 100-meter finals benefitted from near-perfect dash conditions, though the Andover six-lane track required that the eight finalists run in two heats of four. Brockton’s Jonathan Derulos, who clocked a sub-6.50 55 dash indoors, took the first place with a time of 10.90. Acton Boxborough’s Jeremy Thaller took second with an 11.05, a PR for him. Newton South sophomore Phillip Batler took an unexpected third place, clocking an 11.10 from the slower first section of the 8-man, 2-heat final to best Dashawn Velez and Shaquel Anderson of Cambridge RL.
The Weymouth sprinters dominated the 4x1 and 4x400 relays. Weymouth, an underrated hotbed of sprinting talent at the moment, has one of the deeper squads in the state and they proved this with their victories of 43.62 and 3:23.36 (anchored by 400m champion Dave Harrison, who also high jumped 6 ‘2).
The two relays were not even entirely made up of the same team, with the 4x4 having room for nearly three seconds of improvement with Tyler O’Brien (who’s run a sub 50 split) having not run on that relay. Saint John’s Prep caught some crucial points in the 4x1 and 4x4 as well, taking second in the 4x1 with 43.64 and sixth in the 4x4, which can be attributed to their anchor leg Joe Luongo who blazed an unofficial 48.7 split on his anchor leg. Mansfield took third in the 4x400 with a clocking of 3:24.93. Mansfield also won the 4x800 relay with the only sub-8 clocking of the day, running 7:58.59. They were followed by still-impressive times by Lowell, Cambridge R & L and Newton North at 8:02, 8:09 and 8:10 respectively.
The long jump was won by sophomore Anthony DeNitto of Newton South, who PR’d by a foot to jump 21-6.25. Not far behind him was Jordan Samuels of BC High at 21 4.75, who was once more followed closely by William Tejeda of Acton-Boxborough.
In the triple jump, Taunton’s Lherief Kenku capitalized on the injury of MA #1 Jordan Samuels to take first with an effort of 44-5.25. Following him was Malique Dickerson-Pells of Barnstable, who jumped just over 43 feet at 43 ‘1. Only three quarters of an inch behind him was Tom Rhines of Lincoln-Sudbury, taking third. Joao Baptista of Somerville won the high jump with a tiebreaker at 6-6, with Rasahad Williams of BC High taking second with the same jump and losing on misses. Williams, impressively, is in his first year of track for BC High. Evan Dombrowski of St. John’s tossed a monstrous 57-4 in the shot put, besting his nearest competitor by a shy margin of five feet. Dombrowski also took third in the discus, providing 16 points towards his team’s eventual win.
The winner of the discus was Framingham’s Eric Mellusi with a spin and toss of 157-8. Mellusi is currently MA #1 in the disc, with a throw of 170. Bridgewater-Raynham’s Mark Hamalian, who posted impressive performances throughout the competition, won the pentathlon, a new event at the state level this year.
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