Sports Winter Sports Winter Track & Field

Andover’s Top Runners Compete at Nationals

In the final stretch of the 400-Meter Dash, David Onabanjo ’18 overtook multiple collegiate runners to finish first in his heat. Onabanjo set a new Personal Record (PR) with a time of 53.03 seconds for Andover Boys Indoor Track & Field at the U.S.A. Track & Field New England (Usatfne) Indoor Championships.

Andover’s top racers travelled to Harvard University to compete in an an unscored meet. The event was Andover’s last meet of the season, and the team competed against a mix of high school, collegiate and independent programs. Andover runners had the opportunity of racing on Harvard’s 200-Meter track, which is larger than Andover’s 150-meter track.

Onabanjo, who won his heat in the 200-Meter Dash in 24.23 seconds, said, “The biggest thing for me was it was a different type of track. Harvard has a nice 200-meter indoor track, and getting the experience of running against a bunch of other high schools and colleges that push you was great.”

Andover took advantage of the low-pressure environment of the unscored meet, achieving personal success and garnering experience for the upcoming spring track season. Ralph Skinner ’16 took first place in the Mile with a time of 4:29.15 minutes; all of Andover’s runners who ran in the Mile set PRs.

Skinner said, “Since it was not a duel meet, we were able to have some fun and run some events that typically weren’t available. Races like the 200, 400 and 800 definitely felt like a good transition to outdoors because we haven’t run those races all season.”

Captain Andrew Wang ’16, wrote in an email to The Phillipian, “The Usatfne meet was a great opportunity to lace up the spikes that have been gathering dust underneath our winter track shoes. It was a meet to set benchmark times and distances going into the spring season, and it put our hard work from this past season into perspective.”