Wilderness League Championship Meet Hub
It’s championship track time and we kick off the season with the Wilderness championships held at Newfound High School. With qualifying standards tied to this meet, many kids across D2 and D3 chase these marks all season long looking to extend their season one more Saturday. Here’s a look at what to expect.
Sprints
In the sprints, we have two classes of the field in Kennett’s Aida Wheat and Bishop Brady’s Josh Gentchos, top seeds not just for Wilderness, but for D2 and D3 respectively. Anyone looking to win the 100 or 200 will need to go through them to do it. Challenging Wheat in the 100 should be Newfound’s Elle MacDonald as the only other athlete under the 13 second mark. In the 200, expect Gilford’s Macy Sawyer thrown into that mix as the three girls under 27 seconds.
Looking to push Gentchos, Kennett’s Quintin Plourde is half a second back. Toss in Brady’s Alan Yap who is the second seed in the 200 and you’ve got the top of the sprint field.
Mid D
Kylie Rapoza of Kingswood and White Mountains Olivia Lorenz sit atop the 400 meter field having both gone under 62 seconds. Lorenz is also the top seed in the 800 by five seconds over Plymouth’s Reagan Sutherland.
Profile’s Wyatt Lawton is the only one under 52 seconds in the 400, with three under 53 seconds in InterLake’s Landon Richards, Kennett’s Ross Stevens, and Mascoma’s Tanner Moulton. Lawton’s back in the 800 where he’s three and a half seconds behind top seed Isaac Nudd-Homeyer of Interlakes. Tate Hayman of Plymouth is also in the 2:07s.
Distance
Top seeds in the girls 1600 are the O’Shea sisters of Mascenic, with Erin at 5:31 and Kaitlin at 5:39. Gilford’s Maria Tilley is also seeded at 5:39. In the 3200, Elli Englund of Plymouth is the only athlete under 12 minutes, with Emerald Briggs just over at 12:01.
Mascoma’s Gunner Currier leads the men, having run 4:39. But Tate Hayman of Plymouth and Colin Foster of Newfound are close back at 4:41 and 4:43. In the 3200, Profile’s Emery Young has a slight lead over Newfound’s Evan Foster, 10:32.58 to 10:32.79. Hayman is seeded third.
Hurdles
In the 100 Hurdles, we have three under 18 seconds, with Belmont’s Adeline Takanjtas with a slight edge over Kingswood’s Norah Pelletier and Plymouth’s Anelie Flynn. In the 300 hurdles, Newfound’s Stacia Paul has more than a second on Takanjtas, with those two with more than a second over the field.
Both races in the boys hurdles are must see TV, but for different reasons. In the 110 hurdles, White Mountains Elijah Beaulieu has more than a second over the field and should provide a master class in the high hurdles for the crowd. In the 300 hurdles Kennett’s Tyler McCluskey enjoys a 3 hundredths of a second advantage over Brady’s Ryan Casey. This race is tight.
Jumps
In high jump, Kearsarge’s Maelle Jacques enjoys a three inch advantage over Plymouth’s Anelie Flynn and Newfound’s Elle MacDonald. In the pole vault, Kearsarge’s Ainsley Frenkiewich has a foot advantage over Brooke Kimball and Abby Shute of Gilford and Ryleana Barney and Kathleen Egan of Newfound.
In boys high jump we have Kingswood’s Emerson DeNitto with a two inch advantage over Kennett’s Nash Harrigan and Prospect Mountain’s Michael Barnes. For pole vault, sprint hurdle star Beaulieu has jumped 11 feet, with InterLakes Devin Gasque and Gilford’s Ben Wolpin a foot back.
In girls long jump there are three over 15 feet, with Kingswood’s Noah Pelletier leading Mascoma’s Braelyn Stone and Kearsarge’s Frenkiewich. In triple jump, Takantjkas is back with a two foot advantage over Plymouth’s Sydney Valenti and teammate Ava Lacasse. For boys long jump, InterLakes jumpman David Walker has almost a foot and a half advantage over Kennett’s Harrigan and Mascoma’s Moulton. Walker’s back in the triple, again with a two foot advantage over Harrigan.
Throws
In girls throws it would be remiss not to talk about the dominance of Mascoma’s Georgia Kondi. She holds an eight and a half foot advantage over the field in shot put along with a 13 foot advantage in discus over last year’s champion in Newfound’s Isabelle LaPlume. Laplume is seeded second in disc, with Gilford’s Abby Kenyon as the second seed in shot. Girls javelin is shy this year, with only Gilford’s Kenyon and Prospect Mountain’s Mary Hupper listed.
In boy’s shot, three have broken 41 feet, with Kennett’s Owen Ariasover at 44, Prospect’s Parker Wood at 43, and Mascoma’s Barnaby Diehn over 42 feet. Deihn leads disc by over 6 feet over Belmont’s Brady Filteau, both beyond the 130 foot mark. In javelin, Plymouth’s Gabriel Kean enjoys almost a 14 foot advantage over Kennett’s Cadence Kennedy and Mascoma’s Colin Myers.
Relays
In the girls 4×100, the Aida Wheat powered Kennett team is the top seed by almost two seconds over Newfound. Gilford, rumored to have two killer 4×400 teams, will be up against the top seed Plymouth who is seeded with a time of 4:20. White Mountains is the top seed in the 4×800 over Gilford, with a time of 10:40.
For the boys, Kennett is a half a second up on a Gentchos fired 4×100 team. InterLakes has the top seed in the 4×400, more than ten seconds up on Laconia. Prospect Mountain has more than five seconds on Profile in the 4×800.
Team
I’m terrible at calculating team scoring but simply surfing the entries I see a lot of Gilford and Newfound across most all the event entries. That’s usually a good sign. Other teams scoring some big points in certain events would be Kennett, Belmont and Plymouth. For the boys, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say InterLakes, with a somewhat balanced but some big time individual points coming in. I think Brady will score some big points in the sprints and Plymouth has some balanced scoring throughout the events. I expect the team champion to come from that pool.
