Our New England division of USA Track & Field hosted it’s annual Indoor Championships this past Sunday. More importantly, many fast folks vying for a front of the pack start to the All-Terrain Runner Series toed the line for one last big 3k. And big it was indeed! On the women’s side, Battle Road Track Club’s Rachel Sorna proved she was the class of the field, leading gun to wire and putting on the only sub-10 minute performance. Sorna clocked a 9’52.61, which would give her the top seed by a solid margin if she were to submit that as part of the ATR Series. Following Rachel for the silver and bronze were Megan Barry in 10’07.35 and Kara Haas (who unleashed another very impressive kick) in 10’24.38. But let’s not leave out other solid performances, which include a 10’25 race for 4th out of professional triathlete Amber Ferreira, a 12-second personal record by Leslie O’Dell (10’42.30), and Jenn Brooks getting dragged by teammate O’Dell across the finish in 10’43.40.
The men’s end got real interesting. Eric “EJN” Narcisi literally shot out of the barrel like a cannon, chasing a high schooler through the first 220yd in 30 seconds. But it was Battle Road’s John Schilkowsky who would pull off from the early leaders and put on the hammerfest up front. EJN would play the rest of the race in smart fashion and pick his position in the chase pack with Eric MacKnight, Scott Mindel, Scott Leslie, Pat Fullerton in his CMS debut, amongst others. Schilkowsky would go on to win the event in 8’38.86. MacKnight and Fullerton made the late break off the chase pack, but didn’t quite have the real estate to gun down Schilkowsky. The duo finished in 8’42.75 and 8’43.17 respectively. Though it may have appeared like EJN fell back a bit after being the early leader, your LVL Web Coordinator ran his biggest race in quite a few years – clocking a new personal record of 8’57.14. And then in the next section, Kyle Northrop of the SISU Project clearly showed he’s been following the “No Days Off” policy, chopping a solid 16 seconds over his 3k best from a month ago. Northrop would win the section in 9’21.17 with teammate Dan Button not far back in 9’28.63. It shall be interesting to see where the stakes are set after the indoor 3k submissions are finalized.
No doubt the 3k was exciting, but that doesn’t mean any of the other events were stale. The day kicked off with the 5k, which was dominated pretty clearly by Holly Rees on the women’s side of things. The Battle Road TC newcomer hammered out a blazing 16’50.09; a good 2+ minutes over runner up Lucia Cooke of Brown (18’51.78). On the men’s side, GBTC’s Adam Pacheck redeemed himself for a rather rough indoor campaign with a late breakaway from Matt Hillard (Battle Road) and Nate Jenkins (CMS). Pacheck’s 14 minute, 47.48 second performance would be a new indoor 5k best for him (he clocked a 14’33 outdoors last spring). Hillard and Jenkins would finish in 14’51.31 and 14’55.36 respectively. With that being said, Jenkins would extend his streak of calendar years with at least one sub-15 5k to 14 years in a row. Very impressive!
An hour and a half later, the pistols fired for the mile races. Several local high schoolers have historically showed up to this meet to tune up for the New England Championships the following weekend. And this is still true today as Phillips Andover’s Peyton McGovern topped the entire college/post-college field in the mile. McGovern covered the distance in a negative split 5 minutes, 05.25 seconds. She also won the GBTC Invitational Mile last month, outleaning Holly Rees for a 5 flat. And Holly ran one hell of a 5k today, so to beat someone that quick Peyton McGovern has one bright future in running ahead of her! The men would feature two Northeastern runners up front as Collin Rowe served as a pace rabbit for Paul Duffey (who is currently NCAA #25 in the 800m). After the rabbit dropped, Duffey would hold on and carry himself to a 4’10.76 for the win. Heartbreaker David Melly would follow next in 4’14.07 with Wentworth’s Dan McSolla pulling out a late charge to take third in 4’20.79.
Some of the shorter middle distance events turned out pretty well too. In the 400m, GBTC’s Jess Teal proved her strengthwork (2’09 800m strengthwork) has been paying off. Teal closed a 20 meter gap and then some in the last half of the race to win the first section in 57.72. But it was Lebanon NH High School Junior Corinne Kennedy who would steal the competition out of the last heat, running a 57.67. Two weeks ago, Kennedy garnered the NH Division II title in the 300m, clocking the only sub-40 second time to be seen by an NH high school girl this year. For the men, it would come down to a kick between Graham Beutler and Boston-North TC’s Alex Engel. Beutler would hold off Engel’s late surge by a mere 22/100ths of a second – 49.11 to 49.33.
Jess Teal in action. Photo credit: Scott Mason
Last but not least, we can’t leave the 800 meter run out of this summary. In the women’s race, Tiara Tardy would lead gun to wire, posting up a time of 2’14.11. NH High School 600 meter champion Kristie Schoffield would emerge from the chase back in the final straight to take 2nd in 2’18.01 with Charlotte Walmsey of Brown 3rd in 2’18.52. The GBTC duo of Meghan Casey and Victoria Barnaby were not far behind, both running 2’19 and change. After a lap of jostling around, NE Distance stud and 4 x NCAA DIII All-American Ryan Widzgowski went around the early leaders and broke open the race for himself. The Widge would snatch the USATF-NE title in 1’56.15. A clearly mis-seeded Alvirne High School junior Noah Bellomo would take 2nd out of the slower section in 1’58.86 with Joe Doyle and NH High School XC runner up Liam Kimball running 3rd and 4th OA in 1’59.16/1’59.25.
Complete results courtesy of USATF-NE.
Photos courtesy of Scott Mason
Photos courtesy of Mike Giberti
And of course videos too!
