Throughout the duration of the MSTCA Freshman-Sophomore Meet, 11 girls succeeded in PR’ing, 2 medaled and 1 qualified for states. Although the boys did not medal at this Meet, there were still some PR’s set by the boy athletes.
In the two mile, sophomores Kristen Coyne and Ashley Waldron both had over 10 second PRs reaching 12:39 and 12:45 respectively. With her time, Coyne qualified for the Division II State Meet by one second, successfully under the standard of 12:40. Freshmen Lucy Lynch had a big 15 second PR in the one mile with a time of 6:10. Sophomore Michele Lucas was able to PR in the 600 achieving 1:54, getting a 3 second PR. Freshmen Kathryn Lawton improved by 6 seconds in the thousand achieving 3:41. After two irritating false starts in the fastest heat of the thousand, sophomore Gina Conti was able to finish and medal in second place.
The greatest performance of all for the girls at the Freshman-Sophomore Meet was sophomore Savonna Small-Brown. Small-Brown ran in the 55 meter dash with an 8.02 seconds which then led her into the semi-finals where she got 7.99 seconds. Although she did not get a medal nor PR, her performance was fast enough to get her into the semi-finals. Her most commendable event was the long jump where she was finally able to PR.
After time and time again, Small-Brown pined to make a PR in the long jump. With PRs of 15’11 in Spring last year and 15’11.5″ this Winter, she has never been broken 16 feet. Until this meet. On her last jump, with her first two being 14′ jumps, she finally popped a jump of 16’4″.
Savonna said, “I felt like a weight [was] being lifted off my shoulders because I kept getting so close to jumping 16 feet and when I finally jumped 16’4 on my last jump my first instinct was to scream and run around but instead I just put my thumbs up and smiled at grandpa [her nickname for Coach Kevin Butera.” With a jump of 16’4 Small-Brown earned her gold medal for her last Freshman Sophomore Meet. Small-Brown also credited her jump to Coach Butera when she said, “That jump wouldn’t have happened without Butera because of all his criticism and motivation to keep me calm.”
The Boys Rebels team looked good as younger runners competed at an event to really demonstrate their skills. However, sophomore Jon Rockwood said, “It felt good to go out and compete in a more competitive environment.”
Michael St. Germain said, “[he] has been running and working hard” to compete for a Varsity letter. If his hard work ethic spreads to his fellow classmates the Rebel Boys should be extremely fast and strong in years to come. Michael placed second in his heat by PR’ing by over half a second giving him a 9.23. Other performances that were exceptional was freshman Tommy Helms huge PR of over 10 seconds in the mile with 5:17. Sophomore Anthony Divirgilio also had a PR in the mile with a 4:50 which is a 3 second PR for him. Also sophomore Bobby Ellis ran the 300 and PR’d with a 41.26.
Although some of the underclassmen athletes did not perform as well as expected, their time as athletes at the high school is just starting so the expectations will rise as they improve. For the ones that did exceptional jobs they are only seen to get better in the future which will lead the Walpole Rebels to continuous victories even when the upperclassmen leave.
