It was all about the bragging rights. For some, Saturday’s meet provided an opportunity to race against former school buddies, for others, an opportunity to just beat the “townies.” In any case, the winning team would leave with more than just a victory. Andover’s distance team went into the meet missing two key runners. In the first running event, the mile, John Lanterman ’03 stepped up to fill the void and ran against Phil Shaw, AHS’ sub 4:30 miler. Lanterman’s gutsy performance gave him second place with a time of 4:51.5. John Freker ’04 followed closely with a third place time of 4:55.3. Adam Kapor ’04 placed first in the 600 yard dash with a time of 1:21.1, followed by Chris Lanterman ’03, who matched his brother’s performance with a second place finish of his own, finishing in a quick time of 1:23.7. Chris Donais ’05 placed third behind AHS’s two best runners in the two-mile. In the 1000, Piotr Brzezinski ’03 had one of the best performances of the day. He has been improving all year and really stepped it up on Saturday when challenged by Shaw. Sticking with Shaw throughout the whole race, Brzezinski finished second with a time of 2:27.1, just a half-second off first place. Andover’s long jumpers performed well, sweeping the event. Alex Hardt ’04 won with an astounding jump of 20’ 9”. David Sheldon ’04 and Captain Peter Chiu ’03 followed in second and third. The dominance continued in the 50, where sprinters Lee Rattigan ’03, O’Shea Galan ’04, and Sheldon finishing first through third, in that order. Sheldon also won the 300 dash with a blazing-fast time of 35.4 seconds and Rattigan took third. In addition to competing in the 50, Galan was the only Andover high jumper to place in Saturday’s meet, an event he won. Rich Bessen ’04 was the only Andover runner to place in the hurdles, grabbing second place with a time of 7.3. Coming into the season with a personal best of 44’ 11”, Anwell Lanfranco ’04 has steadily improved thus far tossing the shot for an impressive mark of 49’ 1”, improving upon the Upper record that he set earlier on in the season. With a final score of 54 to 41, the Andover’s boy’s track team prevailed over town rival Andover High School to hold onto town bragging rights for another year.
