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caption, page 7:
Some 'Hardware'
Woodstock Academy boys’ and girls’ indoor track athletes proudly show off the hardware they earned at the ECC Div. 1 championship meet. More photos Wed. night on FB: Putnam Town Crier & Northeast Ledger. Photo by Josh Welch.
Girls take 2nd;
boys get 3 1sts
It was exciting right down to the last race for the Woodstock Academy Centaurs indoor track teams Feb. 6 at the ECC Div. 1 indoor track boys’ and girls’ championships.
Woodstock placed second in the girls’ championship meet with 116.6 points, behind only E. Lyme which won its eighth-straight title with a 163.6 total.
“I think we probably put up more points in an ECC championship (Sunday) than if we added up the last 5-to-10 years,” said coach Josh Welch said. “It’s showing a lot of progress for the kids. It’s fantastic. It adds to the validity of the program and I hope it helps us keep going, to take it up there and be in the mix with the top couple teams.”
The boys’ team finished fourth overall with 75 points but enjoyed three first-place finishes.
In the final race, the girls’ 4x400-meter relay, the quartet of Linsey Arends, Leah Castle, Isabella Selmecki and Talia Tremblay held off Waterford to win by 22/100ths of a second.
“It was incredible and the last lap was just exhilarating. Talia opened the gap and Leah did so well to keep the lead. I’m just really impressed with all of them and I’m so happy that this is how my last ECC indoor track meet ended,” Arends said.
It capped off a brilliant day for the senior who was also a member of the winning 4x720-meter relay team and won the 1600-meter race for herself.
“It wasn’t my best time but I was proud of my race strategy and being able to push the last half,” Arends said of her 1600-meter effort in which she finished in 5 minutes, 38 seconds.
Arends was in a group of three going into the final lap, but quickly shed her competitors on the back stretch.
“That was my strategy but I didn’t know they were gone. I thought I could still hear them on the last lap and I was really kicking it,” Arends said.
She was one of the few who left with three first-place medals as three events was the limit for any of the athletes taking part.
Tremblay finished with two as the sophomore captured first in the 600-meter in a time of 1:48.37.
“I haven’t run that time since December and I think it was a personal best. I didn’t expect to be an ECC champion at all because I haven’t had my best races lately,” Tremblay said. “I haven’t raced against some of these girls because I didn’t run the 600 every meet so I didn’t know what to expect.”
Tremblay waited until the last lap to pass E. Lyme’s Ava Mauri.
Tremblay also finished seventh in the 300-meter in addition to being a part of the winning 4x400 team.
Freshman Juliet Allard enjoyed her first ECC championship with a second-place finish in the 55-meter hurdles (9.79 seconds); third-place as a member of the 4x180 team and fourth in the 55-meter dash (7.85).
“For my first year, I’m very happy. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it was a good moment for me,” Allard said. “I was really nervous at first. I had butterflies in my stomach but as soon as I got on the track, it just faded away. I was like, ‘I’m ready for this. I’m going to do this.’”
Allard said the 4x180 was what she enjoyed the most since it was a team effort.
Another youngster, sophomore Julia Coyle, did the always difficult 1600-3200 meter combo and thrived, finishing second in the 3200 after a fourth-place finish in the 1600.
“Julia had a really tough race in the 3200 and fought it out. It was the most mature racing I’ve seen from her. It was smart, controlled, and tough, ”Welch said.
Sophomore Jillian Edwards placed second in the high jump as she cleared the bar in 4-feet, 8-inches. Junior Bella Sorrentino was second in the shotput and third in the long jump.
Boys: The Centaurs didn’t have the sheer numbers to keep up with E. Lyme and Norwich Free Academy who finished first and second with 143 and 127 points respectively.
But the Centaurs made up for it with the three first-place performances.
Junior Vince Bastura raced to a first-place finish in the 1600-meter.
Raced is the appropriate word as he just held off E. Lyme’s Sean McCauley by 38/100ths of a second.
“The last two laps, I didn’t even have a split set. I knew the race and was just trying to race to see how good I could get. I wasn’t worried about the time that much. We started off a little slow but I was in an all-out sprint in the last two laps. I didn’t know if I could hold it, but it worked out in the end,” Bastura said.
Bastura also raced in the 3200-meter and finished third.
Senior Ian Hoffman is known more for his ability on the track, but he showcased what he could do in the air, winning the pole vault.
“He’s been making steady progress but I didn’t see that coming. He looked great out there,” Welch said. Hoffman tied his personal best as he cleared the bar at 10-feet.
He had been jumping 9 feet but he has now cleared the 10-foot height in each of his last two meets.
He captured first because he cleared the height in his first attempt, two other competitors also cleared 10-feet.
Senior Keenan LaMontagne also was a winner. He didn’t get his hoped for 50-foot throw, but his 47-feet, 2-inch effort was good enough for the win.
“I had a rough start at the beginning. I messed up my first two throws but I was able to rally and get it back together,” LaMontagne said.
The ECC indoor track championship could help make for a better Class L state competition later on this week.
“We had a few kids who may have had qualifying performances and I will have to go back and circle them (Sunday night). I know we have an addition in the shotput and in some of the runs. We will add a few more people. As of right now, we have roughly 20 girls and 10-15 boys and it’s cool to see a bus load going and more than half the team will have a role in States. It’s the best we’ve seen since I’ve been here,” Welch said.
Marc Allard
Director of Sports Information
The Woodstock Academy
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