They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery so hats off to Patrick O’Brien as I’ve decided I want to highlight ten things to watch at the 52nd Wilderness Championships this weekend. I have been prone to change things up with a preview so this seems right up my alley. If you’d like to simply see the entries, you can go here: Entries
For insight into the show, here we go.
1.The battle in the girls sprints. In both the 100 and 200, we have Belmont’s Ava Lacasse, Newfound’s Elle MacDonald and Kingswood’s Kylie Rapoza, all having broken 13 seconds and 27 seconds in the 100 and 200. Toss in Gilford’s Macy Sawyer as another one to go sub 27 in the 200 and you have two great clashes.
2.The boys 800. InterLakes Nudd-Homeyer and Winnisquam’s Brendan Goodwin are two of D3’s top 800 meter runners, but neither have dipped under that elusive 2 minute mark…YET. I imagine both are rounding into championship shape and as long as we can get a fair start and there’s not too much jostling for position early, I think we could see sub 2 on Saturday.
3.Girls 4×100 and boys 4×400. Both these events are really tight. In the girls 4×100, Belmont has a slight edge over Gilford so it will be fun to see what develops under championship style conditions. As teams usually use Wilderness to establish the A squad and the game plan for the following week, we’ll likely see what each school has in mind for Divisionals. The same can be said for the boys 4×100 and 4×400, with the 4×400 all the more intriguing as it finishes up the meet. In that, InterLakes has a slight advantage over Winnisquam.
4.Girls and Boys 4x800s. Safe to say I’m partial towards the distance events, and something caught my eye on the entry list. In both races, the advantage from the top seed to the second seed is 16 seconds, Kennett over Gilford in the girls race and Plymouth over Newfound in the boys. Often times the 4×800 qualifying times are set by a teams top distance runners but we often see changes to the lineup come championships as those top distance runners also are entered in and hoping to win individual titles. So for me it will be interesting to see if Wilderness performances reflect the seedings or are closer than they were on paper. Last year my girls were the top seed by a fair amount only to lose to a Gilford squad running their studs.
5.Javelin Battles. In both events, the difference between the top seed and second is about 3 feet, meaning there is no clear favorite in these events. In the girls, Laconia’s Morgan Trefrey has just over a three foot advantage over Mascoma Valley’s Aubrey Meyveagaci. For the boys, Lucas Diaz of Gilford has just under a 3 foot advantage over Max Colby of White Mountains.
6.The Mascoma throwing squad. Led by Georgia Condi and Barnaby Diehn. We saw Georgia coming along last year only to be derailed by injury coming into this season. For Diehn, this time last year did not foreshadow the monster he has become. Both these athletes are class of the field in discus, where they enjoy more than a 30 foot davantage over the competition, for boys that being Mascoma teammate Colin Myer.
7.Wyatt Layton. At the Black Bear Invitational there were very few Division 3 athletes entered in the meet and Layton was one of them. From where I was commentating by the finish line, I saw a very poised young man from Profile take down a stacked field, running the top time among public school athletes this year. I have wondered whether he played in another sandbox as well and I see he is entered on Saturday in the 200 as well. This is another race I will be watching carefully as well.
8.Adeline Takanjtas. Ado has been an up and comer in hurdles for a few years now and has had the pleasure of me butchering her last name more times than just about anyone (except maybe the Athanasopoulos’s!) Ado is the top seed in both hurdle events along with the triple jump so I’m sure I’ll have three times to hopefully redeem myself. I’ve been practicing and certainly I can finally do her last name justice.
9.The points that Mascoma Valley boys put up Saturday. I’ve been asking around as I prepare for writing the preview for the divisional championships and not hoping to jinx anything I’m not going to say exactly what I’ve been hearing. However, if Mascoma can score some big points in the throws, it will go a long way to adding to their points total (nothing secret about that) and certainly will help their chances at a good showing on the big day. Saturday will show some insight on that.
10.The weather. While things have shifted for the better over the last couple days, at the beginning of the meet the forecast calls for 47 degrees and cloudy. With two days of rain preceding this, finishing a couple hours before meet time, those shorter events and throwing events stand to be impacted more than the distance events. In discus and jav especially, wet conditions can be a great equalizer so we’ll have to see how the athletes fare under these tough conditions. Like I said track side last Friday, when the temperatures shot up into the 80s where I was, better the athletes see these tough conditions now before the divisional meet in the event they see them at the divisional meet. I feel similarly with this as well.
