It was the Ava, Brittney, and girls’ 4 x 8 show.
At the regional championship at Walter Johnson High School on Wednesday and Thursday, four B-CC girl athletes ran their way to the state championship next weekend.
Several others barely missed the cut in a competition marked by personal records set by a number of B-CC athletes.
The stars were junior Ava Farrell, who qualified for the mile, two-mile, and as a member of the 4 x 800 meter relay team; sophomore Brittney Wade, who qualified for the 400 meter, 800 meter, and on the 4 x 800 meter relay; and sophomores Caroline Leuba and Laura Nakasaka, the remaining two members of the 4 x 800 team.
In the 4 x 800 meter race, B-CC Track and Field Coach Chad Young said he orchestrated it with a strategy in mind. Believing that the team would almost surely qualify, he placed Farrell as the anchor – Wade usually runs last. That way, if the team was firmly in place to qualify, Farrell would not have to run her hardest and save something for the two-mile race that followed.
The strategy worked. Leuba led off, running 2 minutes, 25 seconds, putting the team in third or fourth place. Wade then set a blistering pace, finishing in 2:16. Nakasaka ran hard and finished in 2:29, and Farrell also finished in 2:29. The team finished second.
In the two-mile, Farrell ran with a pack of girls who went out hard in the first mile. She finished in sixth, out of the running in terms of place, but her time met the qualifying standard. She ran a PR in 11:28 to qualify for states. Farrell also qualified in the mile, running 5:19.
Wade, meanwhile, ran in the 400-meter race against stiff competition from Northwest, including senior All-American Olivia Ekpone. Ekpone won, but Wade emerged from a pack to finish second in 58.29. Two Northwest girls finished third and fourth.
In the 800-meter race, Wade, struggling somewhat because of almost no recovery time between races, fell behind but managed to pass a girl to finish fourth, good enough to qualify. Her time was 2:24.
As much as Young was happy about the girls’ performances, he was sad about a number of athletes who fell just short of qualifying. Still, he was impressed with their effort.
One athlete he singled out was sophomore Eugenia Wilson, a hurdler and sprinter who has come on strong in the last part of the outdoor season. Wilson fell during the 100-meter hurdle race on Wednesday, finishing out of the running. But on Thursday, in the 300-meter hurdles, “she rebounded,” Young said. “She just took off, and was determined to beat everybody. She was in the slower heat and was in the lead for the first turn, and maintained it whole way. We waited for the faster heat to finish, and we anxiously looked at our watches, hoping she would be in the top four.”
Wilson finished fifth. She missed qualifying by one place and one second. Still, she beat her PR in the 300-meter hurdles by an astonishing five seconds. “That’s enormous in a short race like that,” Young said. She finished in 47.78.
For the boys, “it seemed we were fifth place, or one or two seconds off qualifying time the whole meet,” Young said. “There were a number of PRs, but somehow we didn’t have enough to get over the hump this time. It was unfortunate, but at the end of the day the guys felt proud of how they ran.”
Among the top performances:
* The boys’ 4 x 800 meter team finished seventh. “It was a great race to watch,” Young said. “The whole team was into it.” The all-senior team, running in their last high school competition, was Trevor Stephens (1:59), Philip Catterall (2:04); Patrick Frampus (2:07); and Eliot Gerson (2:02).
* Two freshmen two-milers, Alex Riishojgaard and Peter Horton, ran well. Riishojgaard won the slower two-mile heat in 10:28, while Horton finished fourth in that race, in 10:35. Young looked back at the records of freshmen two-milers at B-CC over the past six years, and the pair had the two fastest times in that period. Gerson was No. 3.
* In the 800, Stephens ran 1:59.54 for fifth place. His time was 0.2 off qualifying for the states. “He ran a great race and looked so good,” Young said.
* In the mile, Gerson finished ninth, but set a PR in 4:31. He missed qualifying for states by only two seconds. “At the end of the race, he was happy because he knew he couldn’t have run any faster,” Young said. Two other runners also turned in strong performances. Catterall ran 4:45, or seven seconds faster than his PR, and Frampus ran 4:55, also a PR.
* In the 300-meter hurdles, freshman Nolan Ebner set a PR in 45.52, continuing his steady improvement throughout the year.
* In the shot put, junior Mike Nyarko finished 5th in 44 feet, six inches, a PR, and some seven to eight farther than his performances during invitational meets.
* And in the boys’ 4 x 400 meter relay, the team finished fifth in 3:30, but Young marveled at their effort and performance. “Everyone was on their feet watching this race, knowing it would be tough to qualify,” he said. Nana Twum Agyire ran aggressively, finishing in 52 seconds; Stephens ran a 51-second lap; Julien Dorsey kept it going in 53 seconds; and Weimu Dorsu finished strongly as anchor in 52 seconds.
“We did a great job all the way around,” Young said. “We took care of everything we could control. Not everything turned out exactly the way we wanted it, but everyone should be proud of the way we raced.”
The state championship meet will be held next Friday and Saturday at Morgan State University in Baltimore. The competition starts at 4 p.m. on Friday and 11 a.m. on Saturday.
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