By Anushka Nair ’20, Contributor
The 2017 Country Day varsity track and field stars shone April 14th at Shea Stadium for the Norwood Invitational, the second meet of the season. Against ten other schools, both the girls and boys put on an exceptional performance, placing in the top three in multiple events with the girls scoring 115 points, and the boys scoring 83.
The Country Day girls took the win with 115, just nudging the Norwood girls, who scored 112 points, into second place. The Girls’ field events were led off by Mia Masterson ’19 who cleared an impressive height of 4’4” in the high jump to take the bronze medal. Clarissa Conner ’18 jumped 13’2” and Katie Ashwell ‘20 13’0.5”, placing eighth and ninth, respectively, in the long jump. Sophie Hudson ’17 also put on an impressive performance in the discus throw with a throw of 74’0.5” to take fourth place, with Elena Hamall ’20 taking ninth place and throwing 47’1.5”. The ninth-place position was again taken by Hamall in the shot put with a throw of 18’11”. Overall, the girls’ exemplary performance in the field events gave the team a total of 12 points.
Leading of the running events for the girls, the 4x800m relay team, composed of Grace Pettengill ’17, Natalie DeBeer ’20, Alexandra Pohl ’19, and Lawson Renie ’20, took apart the competition and won the event with a time of 10:51.53 minutes, earning 10 points for the team. The first individual event, the 100m hurdles, gave the team a total of 9 points with Lorae Stojanovic ’18 placing fourth with a time of 19.91 seconds and Moya Ly ’18 placing in fifth with a time of 21.90 seconds. The hurdles were followed by the 100m dash which was won by Joely Virzi ’20 with an outstanding time of 13.15 seconds, and with Anushka Nair ’20 taking home the bronze with a time of 13.56 seconds. The 100m dash gave the girls a total of 16 points as the overall score for the team quickly began to increase. The relay team for the 4x200m relay, composed of Ashwell, Lindsey Hoffman ’19, Cristabel Kleiner ’20, and Mia Lutz ’19, took the seventh-place position overall with a time of 2:02.39 minutes, earning 2 points for the team. Against, some tough competition, DeBeer grabbed the silver medal in the 1600m run with a time of 6:03.38 minutes, adding 8 more to the team’s points. The girls’ 4x100m relay team of Conner, Virzi, Ayanna Kemp ’18, and Emily Ram ’19, sprinted to the finish line with a terrific time of 53.08 seconds to grab the silver in the event and gain another 8 points for the team. Gaining even more points, the bronze medal in the girls’ 400m dash was won by Virzi with a time of 1:04.78 minutes, gaining 6 points. The 300m hurdles was won by Nair with a time of 49.12 seconds, with Stojanovic placing in second, running in 52.57 seconds. The hurdles gave the girls another 18 points. Pettengill blazed through the 800m run to take second place with a time of 2:39.95 seconds, and earned 8 points. Kemp took an impressive second place in the 200m run with a time of 28.27 seconds and 8 points. The penultimate event of the night, and the final event for the girls, the 4x400m relay was won by the team of Virzi, Stojanovic, Nair, and Renie with a time of 4:26.01 minutes, taking apart the competition and earning 10 points. The relay confirmed the win for the girls, and they walked away with 115 points under their belts.
When asked her opinion on the girls’ performance, Virzi said that “[she] felt the girls performed very strongly. Each girl contributed to the win and it’s not about the place you get, it’s about the personal records and improving your own personal time. Everyone did their best, and that’s what makes me proud of everyone. It was a team win. We all just want to get better and better each meet, and the Norwood meet definitely contributed to us getting better.”
Conner, when asked about what she felt contributed the most to the win, told us that “[she believes] the girls’ track team has amazing talent and potential. But skill alone does not contribute to a victory. It was our determination to do our best that aided in coming out on top. The Varsity Track Teams, boys and girls, are very supportive of each other. We are always cheering. I feel that our skill, determination, and support from our teammates gave us the opportunity to win.”
The Country Day boys put on a remarkable performance to take fourth place with a total of 83 points. Clyde Bennett ’17 jumped 5’06” and TJ Moorman ’20 jumped 5’0” to take fifth and sixth place, respectively, in the high jump, earning 7 points total for the team. Corey Lancaster ‘18 took the bronze in the discus throw with a throw of 116’9”, and Josh Payne ’19 took seventh place with a throw of 86’9” to give the boys 8 points. Lancaster and Payne placed seventh and fourteenth in the shot put, respectively, with Lancaster throwing 34’5” and Payne throwing 27’10” to earn 2 points. The field events let boys start their meet off with a total of 17 points.
To kick off the boys running events, the 4x800m relay team of Ewan Boswell ’20, Roshan Chandrakumar ’17, Charlie Sachs ’17, and Nick Krammer ’17 took the silver with a time of 9:19.93 minutes and gave 8 points to the team. TJ Moorman ’20 and Will Sommer ’20 started off the individual events in the 110m hurdles to place in fifth and sixth place, respectively, with times of 22.76 seconds for Moorman and 23.90 seconds for Sommer. They earned a total of 7 points. Myles Jackson ’17 fought off rival competitors to take the silver in the 100m dash with a time of 11.36 seconds, taking 8 points. In a sprint to the finish, Alec Hamall ’19 took the silver in the 1600m run with a time of 4:38.95, and took another 8 points for the team. The 4x100m relay team of Owen Moreno ’18, Moorman, Manav Patel ’20, and Ethan Glosby ’20 took fifth place and 4 points with a time of 52.09 seconds. John Blang ’18 fought off serious competition in the 400m dash to take fifth place and another 4 points with an impressive time of 55.02 seconds. Moving into the 300m hurdles, freshmen Sommer and Wandrille Bonniol ’20 took sixth and seventh place respectively, with times of 53.32 seconds and 53.82 seconds. They earned a total of 5 points. John Pettengill ’18 ran 2:15.01 minutes to take the silver in 800m run, with Boswell taking third in 2:21.77 seconds to earn 14 points. Jackson took eighth place in the 200m dash in 24.21 seconds, and Glosby took fifteenth in 27.48 seconds. Sachs took fifth place in the 3200m run in a time of 11:42.53 minutes to take another 4 points. In the final event of the night, the boys 4x400m relay team of Chandrakumar, Krammer, Blang, and Pettengill took home another 3 points and sixth place in 3:48.88 minutes.
