David Onabanjo ’18 snatched first place in the Boys 300-Yard Dash with a time of 37.44 seconds, falling just shy of his 37.35 from the previous meet. His success helped Andover Boys Indoor Track secure second place in the meet on Wednesday.
“It’s crazy for a [Junior] to win that type of an event,” said Boys Captain John Gorton ’15.
“It’s not a race where you say, ‘I’ll pick it up next lap,’ so from the second the gun goes off to the moment you cross the finish line, whether you’re flying or you’re crawling, you have to go all out,” wrote Onabanjo in an email to The Phillipian.
Andover claimed second place by a 52-40-37 margin in a tri-meet against Wilbraham & Monson and Andover High.
The team excelled in the field events once again. Noah Ward ’17 showed consistency by winning the Shot Put for the second week in a row. Ward had a distance of 47’4”. Isaac Pierce ’16 also won the Pole Vault.
Gorton clinched first place again in the One-Mile, one of his signatures events, with a time of 4.57.53. The distance running duo of Gorton and Ralph Skinner ’16 claimed second and third place behind an Andover High runner in the Two-Mile. Skinner finished with a time of 10.54.32.
Although this meet was Andover Boys Track’s first loss of the season, the team remains optimistic and eager to improve.
Gorton said, “You can’t win these things every time. It feels great to win, but what really gets a team fired up and excited about improvement are those times when it doesn’t go 100 percent your way. I think that’s just part of a track season.”
Andover Girls Track came in first 60-56-12 over Andover High and Wilbraham. This win elevated the team to a 2-1 record for the season.
Camille Little ’16 continued to contribute points to Andover’s score by placing first in the 50-Yard Dash and the 300-Yard Race. Little finished the 50 and the 300 with times of 6.47 seconds and 40.45, respectively.
The team was victorious in the 600-Yard Race as well, in which returner Caroline Shipley ’16 took first place. Shipley kept a solid lead from the beginning of the race, finishing with a time of 1.40.11.
Shipley, Kinsey Yost ’15, Captain Charlie Jarvis ’15 and Meghan Tao ’15 claimed first place in the 4×400-Yard Relay with a time of 4.39.68.
Yost wrote in an email to The Phillipian, “We were able to make up ground early on and extend the distance between us and Andover High with each leg. By the end, we had lapped the other relay, something that usually never happens.”
Distance runner Anoush Shehadeh ’15 secured first place in the Girls One-Mile with a time of 5.50.05. Shehadeh also placed second in the Two-Mile in 12.22.99 minutes.
For field events, Sidney Holder ’17 took first place in the Long Jump with a distance of 15’7”. Jarvis finished close behind Holder with a 15”2’ jump, for second place. Alexis Lefft ’16 claimed first place again in Shot Put with a throw of 28’8”.
Andover Track hopes to continue its success at the Greater Boston Track Club (GBTC) Open Invitational on Sunday.
