It was a disheartening day for Boys Indoor Track on Thursday, January 10, when they lost to Norwood for the first time since 2006. Not only was it a tough loss but a close one at that—the final score was 52-43, only a 9 point difference. Coming into the season, it was known that the opposing Norwood team was vastly improved: they had a few runners who could break 5 minutes in the mile, 7 seconds in the 55m, 40 seconds in the 300m, 1:35 in the 600m, and 2:55 in the 1000m, all of which are tough barriers for many runners to break. While in recent years, Norwood had only a handful of athletes below these times, this year’s team is in competition for the Herget Championship.
In the distance events, there were more points scored by Walpole than Norwood, although the opponents did score a decent amount. In the 600m, junior Anthony DiVirgilio cut 4 seconds off his personal record, now 1:32.25, which was good enough to land him first place by just a second. Senior Nick Culhane was following close behind and only ahead of Norwood’s top racer by just a step, but in the last 25 meters, he fell and the other runner passed him.
Sophomore Joe Keough ran a 5 second PR, 1:34.97, which placed him at third. The 1000m event was a similar story. Junior Jon Kelland beat his competition from Norwood by half of a second, and in the the last 100m, sophomore Brendan Wohler fell out of second place, though he still PR’d by 2 seconds. Senior captain Sean Herlihy won the mile by only a second as well, decreasing his PR to 4:51.56. Junior Mikey Van der Linden, who was right with them until the last 150m, came in third to bring his PR down to 4:55.01. In 2-mile, Walpole swept, and sophomore Nick Hayden had a good first outing with 11:24.67. Senior Alex Fraser brought his PR down by 10 seconds and it’s now 11:28.17.
In the sprints, Walpole lost the lead. Walpole was swept in the 300m, but even if the top runner, injured freshman Ian Fair, had run the event, he would probably have not beaten Norwood’s third man, as his PR of 40.56s is half of a second behind what the Norwood runner ran. The 55m dash was an upset, too. Senior captain Connor McCarthy came in third place against Norwood with a time of 7.01, losing to sophomore Aaron Cockrane by less than .01 seconds. The meet before, Cockrane ran 8.00 seconds, which is a very significant difference in this event. McCarthy proved his strength though in the 55m hurdle dash when he came in first for the league with a time of 8.03 seconds, .3 seconds better than anyone else. McCarthy also did not place in the high jump and came in second for the long jump. He was the only sprinter to score any points.
Junior thrower Robbie Lederman threw 37 feet, 1 inch, which was over five feet longer than his previous best. This phenominal throw for him was good for third place against Norwood. Along throwing with him were freshmen Carlos Andajur and Nick Campobasso.
The meet was a tough loss for the track team, and they can only be hopeful to get more wins under their belt. Their next meet will be a battle between against Wellesley, and with a strong distance team and sprinters to back them, Wellesley is going to be a hard team for them to overcome.
