Mackenzie Condon (long jump) and Dash Christy (55-meter high hurdles) became the first indoor track individual state champions from Martha’s Vineyard on Wednesday night at the Reggie Lewis Center in Boston.
Their performances helped their teams to finish in the top tier of Division 5 Massachusetts high schools, the best-ever performance in the five-year indoor track history of Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School (MVRHS). Officials at the meet were adding up final scores and placements late last night, but the MVRHS boys team tied for fourth in the state for D5, and the girls team was ninth, the first time the Vineyarders had top 10 finishes in the states.
For perspective, there are 85 Division 5 high schools in Massachusetts, of which about half qualify for the state championships. On Wednesday, only 39 boys’ teams scored any points.
As a result of their performances, at least three MVRHS athletes — Condon, Christy, and JoJo Bonneau (third in 55 high hurdles) — qualified for the All-States regional meet on Feb. 23 at the Reggie Lewis Center. The Vineyarders have a couple of athletes, such as miler Peter Burke, whose strong finishes put them in the All-States wild-card hunt as well. Nate Packer hurled the shot 47 feet, 3 inches, for his personal best throw, good for sixth place in the competition.
The indoor track scoring system rewards the first eight event finishers with 10 points for first place, lesser amounts for lower finishes, down to one point for eighth place. With Condon’s long jump win and second place in the 55-meter hurdles, she scored all of the Vineyarders’ 18 points, although Amber Cuthbert just missed scoring with a ninth-place mile run.
The boys team scored 29 points to tie for fourth place in D5, led by Christy’s win in the 55-meter hurdles, JoJo Bonneau’s third place in the event, Peter Burke’s fourth place in the mile, the 4×800 relay team’s (Peter Burke, Isaac Richards, Owen Atkins, and Jon Norton) fourth place, and Nate Packer’s sixth-place toss in the shot put.
Coaches Joe Schroeder and Joel Graves were walking on air throughout the four-hour, 13-event competition, which began with Christy’s state title dash and Condon’s second in the 55-meter hurdles.
“Yes, this is a great era in Vineyard track,” Schroeder bubbled early in the night. “Really it began with the 2017 girls track team.”
It was a big night for the Vineyard teams. “We’ve never scored so many points as we have tonight at this tournament.The competitive spirit was palpable tonight,” he said later.
The coaches’ and teams’ euphoria was amplified by the venue. Reggie Lewis is a top-notch fan venue, and upwards of 1,000 fans filled both sides and one end of the oval. The other end was dominated by a Jumbotron display which showed the Vineyarder boys leading the tournament through the first nine events, and the girls hovering near the top 10.
The drama continued all night, with several breathtaking performances at the wire. Condon, for example, won her state long jump championship on her final jump, a personal best 17 feet, 4 inches, to win by a half-inch.
And very late in the evening, the boys’ 4×800 meter relay team churned their way from the back of the pack in the early going, knocking 7 seconds — a lifetime in track time — off their personal best for a fourth-place finish, to nail down their D5 fourth-place placement.
The essence of track competition centers on the meaning of “personal best,” which often has nothing to do with winning. Observers saw a great example in the long jump prelims when Wareham senior Jillian Rawding leaped out of the sand pit in celebration after qualifying for the finals.
Rawding hugged and high-fived everyone, including Condon, on her way back to Coach Chris Gardner. “I’ve been trying to do this [qualify for long jump finals] for four years,” she explained. “Sickness, injury, the competition, something always got in the way. I don’t care what my distance is. This was my last chance to make the finals.”
Gardner was grinning ear-to-ear. He knows about competition, having played football at Nantucket against the Vineyarders during the Mike Snowden era in the late 1990s. “Jillian has had success in outdoor track, but she really worked hard for this moment,” he said.
Rawding finished sixth in the state in the D5 long jump, and scored the Wareham girls’ sole three points. “You have to keep working. Practice does pay off,” she said.