Massachusetts (MIAA) All-State Indoor Championships 2012

Mass All States Boys 4x4 seeded 2012 0226

It was a most pleasant, unexpected prize the Mansfield High School boys' track team brought back from the Reggie Lewis Center on Sunday. For the third straight year, the Hornets can call themselves the best track team in the state after sharing the 2011-'12 MIAA All-State Meet title with Newton North. (via www.thesunchronicle.com)

For three years, Lincoln-Sudbury’s Marika Crowe got to run with Andrea Keklak, who was considered one of the best female high school distance runners in the country during her time at L-S. Whatever Crowe learned from Keklak paid off at yesterday’s All-State Indoor Track and Field Meet at the Reggie Lewis Center. (via http://www.milforddailynews.com)

Brockton’s Vanessa Clerveaux stood on the victory stand and looked a bit surprised as the Reggie Lewis Center crowd gave her a thunderous ovation at yesterday’s 27th All-State Championships. Clerveaux may have been taken off guard, but the show of affection was sincere and well deserved.... (via Boston Herald)

An entire season came down to the final relay leg at yesterday’s All-State Track Championships at the Reggie Lewis Center, and the result was no clear-cut winner. Newton North anchor Daniel Swain fended off two furious challenges by Acton-Boxboro’s Brian Sommers to win the 4 x 400-meter... (via Boston Herald)

Based on the performance list entering the meet, the Newton North boys were projected to score 24 points.  Even further down the list, Mansfield was projected to only score 14 points.  Both should have finished mid-pack if the performance list had any significant impact on the outcome of the championship.  Thankfully for both teams, seed times mean little.

With this amount of coverage for one meet, things can get lost in the shuffle.  MileSplitMass will be on-site at the Reggie Lewis Center with live results, Twitter updates, photos, and video.  This page has been created to conveniently put everything in one place for the track fans at home.  Enjoy the meet; it should be a good one.

Thanks again to Chuck Martin for spending a painstaking amount of time in the public library hunting down every Massachusetts All-State Indoor Track and Field Championship team since the first competition was conducted in 1985.

James Sullivan's winning time of 4:15.33 last Sunday at the MIAA Division 1 Track & Field Championships at the Reggie Lewis Center was 20 seconds faster than his fastest indoor mile last season, and the sixth-fastest high school indoor mile in the country this season.  (via www.lowellsun.com)

Every event in a state championship provides excitement and drama, but this year the relays may decide the team title. But don't expect to see the same line-ups from last week. Some additional fresh legs --courtesy of athletes that did not qualify in an individual event-- may help the common man become the hero. We watched it happen on Sunday at the Division 1 Championships, and those same teams remain in the hunt this week.

The All-State Championships are less than a week away and the MIAA just released the performance lists.  See the match-ups and follow all the coverage as we kick-off an exciting week of indoor track and field.

I am inspired to write this column by my son Jake Powell and Peter Hale, his close friend since the day the two met in first grade. Their story belongs to children in fields and gyms all over our country.  They were the kids with the concave chests in third, fourth and fifth grade. They were the kids who played right field and batted ninth. They were the ones who often struck out, sometimes with the game on the line.