There is always a first time for everything. This past Saturday, I watched two Indoor State Championships much like I always have, but certainly with a new twist. Last year, after a long stint at Leverone Fieldhouse in Hanover, we held our first NH Indoor State championships at the AllWell Center in Plymouth. Having pulled that off well, this year the plan was to host one championship on Saturday and one on Sunday, but Mother Nature had other plans. Looking like we were in for a doozy on Sunday, the minds of the NHIAA and the indoor track committee looked for possible solutions and settled on going with what we know, hosting both meets on one day. Just not on Sunday, and for the first time I can remember, not on the Superbowl. While many of my colleagues may have been rejoicing this, it made no difference to me.
But man, what a set of state championship meets. I get a front row seat by commentating, and while many go bananas over the athletic event happening the following night, I was plenty jazzed up 24 hours in advance. With a bunch of records going down along with some great races and impressive wins, I was in seventh heaven, not even missing the nachos and chicken wings.
First I’d like to shout out the individual and team winners. While not looking to list them all out, I will shout out the Milford and Pinkerton boys, and the Oyster River and Bedford girls. Milford got it done on the backs of a handful of athletes spread out throughout the meet. Pinkerton did it by simply dominating the point scoring, coming from everywhere. Bedford’s hopes were riding on some big scoring from Anika Scott and Mikita Barry, and man did they deliver where it counted (even with Scott missing the final of the long jump.) And Oyster River did what Oyster River does best, dominating the distance events winning the 4×800, 3000, 1000, and the 1500.
But how about some of those those runners up? In D2 the girls runner up was Hollis Brookline, with only Grace Dow as their event winner and scoring spread out in bits and pieces. And they only squeaked it out over Belmont by a point despite Belmont’s big winners in the 55 and 4×200, and a second in the 4×400. And how about the ConVal boys team coming in second! I happened to be walking the floor when the five boys that make up the CV squad returned to AllWell, already headed home when they returned as they were sitting in second place and needed to wait for the results of Merrimack Valley in the relays. Made for some interesting moments for sure.
We also saw a number of state records, and while not quite as many as last year, I think we can all agree that AllWell is the BU of the north. Anika Scott broke her own record in the hurdles, while Haley Kavanaugh did the same in the 1500. Other divisional records that went down was the 4 x 200 meter relay in Division 1 by the Central boys, and in D2 we had Colby Crear of Pelham get the 55 hurdle record for boys, with Kavanaugh’s teammate Mackenzie Cook took down the record in a solo effort in the 3000 meters. So again, quite a day.
And there were upsets. Two of the biggest surprises were Matthew Morrison of Pinkerton in the 55 hurdles specifically, and Anika Scott in the long jump. Morrison led the prelims and looked primed to take the event, when he tagged the fourth hurdle and stumbled, and made the greatest recovery I think I’ve ever seen in the 55 hurdles to finish third in a race he was leading. I watched the after effects of this race, as he had to head back to the start line for the 55 dash, and I was impressed with his poise which couldn’t have been easy. And Scott, easily the best long jumper we’ve seen in NH in a while (perhaps ever), missed her first three attempts, meaning she would miss out on the final. She stormed back to take the 55 hurdle title and the state record but that long jump title was considered a sure thing. A team state title for both of them is probably a pretty good consolation prize.
Also how about Alvirne’s Shane Plumley in the 600? Running out of the first heat of slower seed times, Plumley stormed through his three laps, putting up a time only three others in the faster heat had run, giving them a high bar for their heat. And while there was a great battle in that second heat, when the dust settled, Plumley’s 1:25.28 would beat out Londonderry’s Josh Twomey’s 1:25.60 for the 600 meter state title.
Other cool things I saw were Matt Giardina put on a clinic in the 3000, jumping right to the front and simply pounding out lap after lap. Mackenzie Cook did the same thing in D2s, grinding 40s over and over. Giardina went out and won the 1500 as well, however in this he had company from someone he knows very well, teammate Carson Fisher, and at one point it looked as Fisher might have him. But Giardina hung tough and got the job done. Cook would double back in the 1000, leading gun to tape again, but had a little more company on this one considering the short twenty five minutes break between.
In D1, there was a great battle in the girls 3000, with Alexa Paterna of Exeter winning a race that Shelly Smith of Concord set the pace for most of the race. In the 1000, Mikita Barry showed why she’s nationally ranked, winning in 2:55, to come back and win the 1500 convincingly as well. There was a great battle between ConVal’s Will Simard and Hanover’s Andrew Valentino in the 3K and how about Kearsarge’s Dan Dalbec gun to tape run in the 1500? In the boys 1000, Ryan Zumbach was the class of the field but there was a great race in D2s where Logan Korthals led most of the race to be challenged by OR’s Mitchell Keesee and Monadnock’s Peyton Joslyn, with Joslyn getting by just on the finishing straight.
While that last race may have been the race of the day, the event of the day was likely the boys high jump in D2, where four contestants cleared 6-2 and were competing at 6-4, with the eventual winner being John Stark’s Rio Calle. I was also impressed with Belmont’s Ava Lacasse, winning the 55 and anchoring the girls 4×200 (1st) and the 4×400 (2nd). She’s only a junior. Yes, there was some great action last Saturday.
And even though I easily made it home to partake in the other “big” event of the weekend, I was pretty sure I had already seen all the greatness in athletics I needed for the weekend, and considering I had been up late the night before, I was in bed before the masses were in shock at the game’s impending outcome. Dreaming of spring track…
I’ll see you out there.
