By Ryan Moyer
Another qualifying week has come and gone, and the standards continue to reach new heights as we take a look at some of the highlights from the previous week.
Phillips Exeter Academy
PEA has been no exception to the competitive nature of track and field as I had briefly stated last week, especially for two athletes. For the girls, Nashua North’s Jhanelle Thomas took part in four different state leading times starting off in the 55-meter dash where she set the new lead to 7.29 seconds, tying the DI record held by Yorgelis Ortiz of Londonderry from 2015. She continued that momentum into the 300-meters, breaking 42 seconds in 41.46 seconds. She joined up with fellow teammates Tiana Brown, Sarah Frye, and Allison Frye in the 4×200-meter relay to run under 1:50 seconds in 1:49.10. She also added another anchor leg effort in the 4×400-meter relay where she and her team of Brown, Frye, and Rosalie Neveu posted a 4:12.40. All four of these efforts now lead Division I and the entire state. Alexis Paterna of Exeter also set the 1500-meter lead to 4:50.55. In the mix for the throws was Coe-Brown’s Isabelle Grenier who jumped atop the DII list in the shot put with a toss of 34’ 7”.
Following suit for the boys is Matthew Morrison of Pinkerton. He reset two DI leads starting in the 55-meters with a time of 6.46 seconds to burst ahead of the field by 7 hundreths of a second. He then joined Matthew Hanna, Brayden Parker, and Ryson Michaud in the 4×200-meter relay to set the new DI time to 1:33.00. Other new lead resets were by Owen Janetos and Ryan Zumbach of Winnacunnet with Janetos in the 300-meters, winning in 36.16 seconds while Zumbach went line to line in the 600-meters to drop the top time two seconds to 1:22.79. Pinkerton’s Jason Robie dipped past the previous 1500-meter lead in 4:13.71.
UNH
There were a couple of standouts performances on the girls’ side starting off with Hannah Pawlowski of Bow who set a new top time in the 600-meters for Division II to 1:41.75. In the relays Oyster River’s 4×800-meter relay squad of Jahrie Houle, Madelyn Cook, Mackenzie Cook, and Haley Kavanagh ran 10:02.76 to lead DII. Both top Division times for this event have been run on the 160-oval at UNH which is an impressive five laps for the 800-meters. Consuelo Borico from Concord skyrocketed in the shot put when she threw 36’ 5.25” to a new DI leading mark.
With one week to go, we have more action coming up on the UNH track this weekend as we wait for the much-anticipated State Championships.
