The Vineyarder girls track team gave us a look at the future Wednesday during a seven-team meet at the luxurious Notre Dame Academy facility in Hingham. The optics are good.
Competing against top-caliber teams from Notre Dame, Fontbonne, and Ursuline academies, Mount Alvernia, Montrose, and Malden Catholic, the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School squad won four events, and had an important second-place finish. Three of the five were in dramatic fashion, in a field of more than 350 athletes dominated by Notre Dame, Fontbonne, and Ursuline.
Senior Mackenzie Condon won the high jump and the 100-meter hurdles, the latter by an eye-opening two-second margin, par for her lofty course, and the day also included surprise victories from the up-and-coming group.
First, the recently formed 4×100 relay team placed second at the event, as freshman Annabelle Biggs outleaned an Ursuline runner at the wire, a technique she used earlier in the day to win the 200-meter event. Sophomore Yayla DeChiara didn’t need to outlean anyone in her two-mile run debut. DeChiara ran with the leaders for the first two laps of the eight-lap run, then followed sideline coaching suggestions by Coach Joe Schroeder and assistant Jeremy Alley-Tarter (MVRHS 2014) and turned on the turbos to win the event literally by several hundred yards. DeChiara ran relentlessly (12:43), with consistent times on the first seven laps before running her fastest leg (91 seconds) on the final lap.
The two-mile run was described to me at the winter indoor meet by a South Shore coach as “the most thankless job in track,” but freshman Borja Tolay winning his first two-miler last week and DeChiara’s dramatic win yesterday has some Vineyard track folks feeling pretty grateful.
The Vineyarders got top finishes from sophomore Amber Cuthbert (third in 800 meters), junior Paige Pogue (second in discus), and Catherine Cherry (third in the mile), but they also got big numbers in participants in many field events, including seven in the shot put, and five each in the discus and long jump. In all, at least 20 Vineyarder girls competed on Wednesday. Even late in the season, new names, like sophomore Christianna Edwards in four events, are appearing on the scoreboard.
