Section V Winter Track League Update Week 6
by Reggie Henderson
Another week of 2 quick meets, this time at RIT, greatly reduced numbers of races and field events. But… all the relays were run and there were some extremely close finishes where the winning teams not only won, but also set season leading marks for Section V.
Meet 1 (Groups ABC)
In Section V’s strongest relay race on a statewide rankings basis Webster Thomas Girls 4 x 800M team ran a new Section V leading time of 9:55.16 and had a very close win over Pittsford Mendon at 9:55.75 with both teams moving ahead of the former leader Penfield on the Section V leaderboard and both teams beating the Penn Relays qualifying time of 10:00.00.
The same two schools repeated in the Girls 4 x 400M team where Webster Thomas just edged out last week’s performance by Wayland Cohocton for a new Section V leading time of 4:17.50. Pittsford Mendon also broke the Penn Relays qualifying standard of 4:20 with their 2nd place time of 4:18.11.
Hilton and Edison Tech’s Boys 4 x 400M relay teams had a photo finish at 3:35.24 to 3:35.60 which both beat Aquinas’s leading time of 3:35.77.
Winsome Hudson of Aquinas long jumped 16-9 to just barely take over the lead from Taylor Hudson of Victor’s jump of 16-8.25 from last week.
Cory Cox of East clobbered the first competition by almost 3 feet, but his 22-9.75 came up an inch and a half short of his own Section V leading season best.
Meet 2 (Groups DEF)
I guess girls run fast late at night because all three girls relay winners set new Section V season best times.
In the Girls 4 x 200M Spencerport left everyone else in the dust, (including former 4 x 200 leader Aquinas who competed in Meet 1), with their 1:50.73.
Then in the Girls 4 x 400M Fairport came out and beat Webster Thomas’s leading time done in Meet 1 with their new leading time of 4:14.13.
Finally Penfield Girls 4 x 800M did not let Webster Thomas enjoy their lead for more than a couple hours when they blazed a 9:45.51 which was an improvement of 10 seconds over their leading time from last week and nearly 10 seconds better than Webster Thomas’ time from earlier in the evening. Their time reaffirmed them as the best relay team of any gender or distance on the state leaderboard from Section V and they are ranked 12th in the state, just 2.51 seconds off of the Milesplit US First Team Elite standard of 9:43.
For the boys relays, the 4 x 400M relay board got even more crowded at the top as Fairport won with a 3:35.41 which slips them into 2nd place on the leaderboard which looks like this:
Hilton 3:35.24, Fairport 3:35.41, Edison Tech 3:35.60, Aquinas 3:35.77
That’s right, 4 teams within 0.5 second of each other. What a race is coming up at State Q’s!
In the boys 4 x 800M Rush Henrietta crushed the competition and improved their season leading mark to 8:16.47 which puts them within 1.47 of qualifying for Penn Relays.
In the field events, Taylor Hudson of Victor did not let stand Winsome Hudson of Aquinas’ new leading Girls Long Jump mark from earlier in the evening, as Taylor busted out the first 17+ jump of Section V this season with a 17-2.25 which makes the state standard.
The Boys High Jump had the strongest field of the season. Jayvon Larkin of Wilson Magnet had only made 6-1 this season and that was over a month ago, but tonight he cleared 6-4, unfortunately for him, Joe Postwaite of Gates Chili matched his own Section V leading mark of 6-4 and beat Larkin in a jump-off for first. Tyler Ventrillo of Wayne jumped 6 INCHES over his previous season best to join the crowded 6-2 club while tying with Chris Reape of Brighton for 3rd. With 20 guys in the state at 6-2, and only 14 guys higher than that, this event may need to consider going by ½ inches.
Erica Williams of Batavia just missed her season leading mark of 38-7.5 but she crushed the field by over 5 feet in the second meet with her throw of 38-6.
So… next Friday is the last regular league meet, another abbreviated session like tonight’s. Then Sat. Jan. 29th is the RIT Tiger Invite. A high quality meet as exemplified by the boys 10-0 and girls 7-9 starting heights in the pole vault (as compared to 8-6 and 6-6 at the Southern Tier Invite held earlier this month at Cornell). Then we’re on to Sectional Championships the third week of February.