Monday, June 14, 2010

Medals All Around

So, the Webster Schroeder track team was well represented at the State Championships, and all of the representatives scored medals, thanks to some outstanding performances. On Friday, Brycen had an incredible race to win the Division 1 Championship, while tying the Section V record, with a 46.81. An ailing AJ anticipated another event and only ran 2:02. Meanwhile, Kevin had solid performances in the HH, HJ and Shot to grab 6th place after Day 1 of a very competitive Pentathlon.

On Saturday, the great efforts continued. Brycen ran to win the Federation 400, and did so, with a 47. Kevin had a decent Long Jump and an excellent 1500 to reach the podium, finishing 5th in Division 1 and 7th for the Federation. Finally, the 4 x 800 relay team exceeded all expectations with a 5th place finish, running an incredible 7:47, and coming within 2 seconds of the 35-year-old Section V record.

Splits:
Nico 60.27 1:57.53
Ben 57.81 1:59.99
AJ 55.87 1:57.22
Brycen 54.49 1:52.60

Nico went from last (18th) at the 400 to 4th at the handoff. Ben held off a boatload of challengers until the last 200. AJ made up ground on the nearby teams (but Deir did catch him at the end). Brycen took off, left Mangan far behind on the first lap. When Mangan and Burnt Hills caught up with 200 to go, Brycen again went to work and secured 5th place, while making a valiant effort at catching 4th (from at least 5 seconds back).

What a weekend!

Friday, June 11, 2010

States!

Today and tomorrow are the NY State Championships for Track and Field. Some important links are below.

Order of Events

"Live" Results

We are represented in three straight track events today:
2:30 - Brycen in the 400m (Division 1 Finals)
3:00 - Kevin in the Pent High Hurdles
3:20 - AJ in the 800m Championship

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

State Qualifiers

Complete results from the State Qualifiers are here for the boys, and here for the girls.

It was another fine meet for the Schroeder Boys. Geoff had the first final of the meet, the Steeplechase. It was run as a combined race for Division 1 and Division 2. Geoff tried to go out conservatively - he was in last place for the first lap - but the crowd was out too quickly, so Geoff's place was quite good, but the time was a bit slower than Counties.

Geoff 77 2:35 3:55 5:19 6:45 8:12 9:43 10:32

Brycen won the 400 in 48.20, with his very strong move past Twombly on the back stretch looking good, and the 200 split was very fast, but the last 50m proved to be a bit of a struggle.

Nico was up in the 400 hurdles and went out quicker than usual and was leading through much of the race, but the closing speed of the guys from East and Edison was just too much. Nico did PR in 56.73.

Next up was the 800, and we had three entrants. The race went out very quickly, the top 4 came through around 56, with our pack back at 60. AJ, confident that there were not two 1:56.94 or better times to be had, cruised through the second lap, while Nate and Joe went after the rest of the pack. Nate moved all the way up to 4th, and Joe was able to grab 6th. Andrew Pirnie had an incredible run to win in 1:56.55 and Knapp from Arcadia gave AJ a scare, but did miss the state cutoff time.

Nate 60 2:01.74
Joe 60 2:03.38
AJ 60 2:06.79

Finally, it was time for the main event - the much anticipated 4 x 800 relay. With R-H pulling Nick Watson from the open 800, it was clear that they thought they had a shot at HF-L and/or Schroeder. Meanwhile, Brighton was actually the second seed, and Fairport's relay members were all running just the one event.

The leadoff legs were very quick, right from the line, and Ben was pushed back to last place. He made a strong move on the backstretch during the second lap, and moved up to 5th, behind Hilton, R-H, Fairport and HF-L. Despite Nico's very fast first lap, he did not close much of the gap on those teams, but as they faded on the second lap, he shot by Hilton, then caught Fairport and R-H, but still trailed HF-L by about two seconds. AJ made up the gap on Deir on the first lap, with a quick 54.87. As the hit the top of the final stretch, AJ tried to pass and managed to pull even, but that's how they finished. Brycen took the handoff on the outside, but Mangan let him pull in front, and followed him thru the 400 in a pedestrian 61, before making a very strong move. Brycen chose to wait, rather than covering the move, and even allowed Watson to catch him. With 200 to go, Brycen took off and was able to finish 4 seconds ahead of R-H for the state berth (R-H was also under the state standard), but the move came too late to challenge Mangan, who won by over two seconds. Still, the 7:54.55 finish time crushed last year's school record time by 15 seconds.

Ben 60 2:01.81
Nico 56.7 1:57.50
AJ 54.87 1:54.18
Brycen 61 2:00.75

Kevin had a great day in the Pent, winning the Hurdles, the High Jump and the Long Jump, and finishing with a 5:05 in the 1500, to grab the overall win.

Val went 62.35 in the girls 400. She was joined by the weight girls, who went 3-4-6 in the Discus along with 6th in the Shot.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Sometimes A Tie Is Better Than Kissing Your Sister

Being the optimist that I am, I see the team's fantastic performance on Saturday and the patches that everyone received, and I see Sectional Champions! Going into the meet as 11-point underdogs to three-time defending champions, Edison, we knew it would be a challenge, but the guys stepped up to the challenge and earned the [co-]championship by equaling Edison's 91 points.

Complete results are available here.

For us, things went mostly according to the seeding, but there were a few gains that enabled our ultimate victory:
Kevin grabbed second in the hurdles (was seeded 3rd)
The 4x4 relay finished 2nd, after being seeded 3rd
Brycen took third in the 100 (was seeded tied for 3-4-5)
Nate worked his way up for a 3rd in the 3200 (was seeded 8th!)

I'll have to post splits at a later time.