Northampton’s Hoogendyk repeats as MSTCA West Heptathlon champion

SOUTH DEERFIELD – For the second straight season, Ella Hoogendyk took first place in the Massachusetts State Track Coaches Association (MSTCA) West Heptathlon, winning with 3,742 points, following Day 2 of events on Wednesday at Frontier Regional.

Hoogendyk, a junior from Northampton, highlighted a pack of top-five girls finishers from Hampshire County as South Hadley’s Maggie Crawford (third) and Amherst Regional’s Elizabeth Sawicki (fourth) fell in closely behind.

“To be honest, I was a little worried for a while,” Hoogendyk said. “I obviously came into it wanting to defend my title. I had to remember how to do all the events and there’s a lot of pressure coming into things being seeded first. I feel like that fueled me a little bit.”

Hoogendyk’s best event was, ironically, the discipline she has the least amount of experience in. The Blue Devil barely competes in the 800-meter race throughout the season, but still pulled off a second-place finish during the two-lap race, which coupled as the last event of the two-day meet for the girls competitors on Wednesday.

“My 800, I had so much fun with that,” Hoogendyk said. “I haven’t run a 800 since last year.

“I do a lot of things normally, anyways,” Hoogendyk added. “I long jump, I can do the 400, 100 hurdles, I’ve high-jumped before, so I’ve done a little bit of everything. I carry over the training that I’ve done all season and put it into one meet and good things happen.”

Hoogendyk mentioned the biggest improvement from the 2024 meet to the 2025 meet came in the 800. The Blue Devil estimated a five or six second personal best time this time around in the farthest distance running event of the heptathlon.

Hoogendyk helped the Northampton girls notch third place overall in the team competition, falling to only Amherst (second) and West Springfield (first). Blue Devils’ senior Eleanor Lewis slotted into the top-20 individual finishers too with a 15th-place finish.

“I love when my teammates do well,” Hoogendyk said. “It makes me feel good. If we could all do well then I’m happy. Eleanor and Odessa [Gianesin], they hadn’t done most of the events. They came and watched last year and they were like ‘we want to do this,’ and it was really fun to see them try events that they had never done before and I think they did really well for doing all these things for the first time.”

Julianna Albo snatched 11th overall in the individual competition as the Hurricane held on after a strong start on Day 1 for a top-20 finish.

On the boys side, South Hadley’s Matt Gillis earned second place overall in the decathlon competition and was Hampshire County’s top finisher with 5,234 points. The Tiger’s best event from a point-earning perspective was the 400 as Gillis grabbed 655 points with a time of 53.38 seconds.

Westfield’s Stephon Pryor won the decathlon with 5,914 points.

Gillis was the first of four total South Hadley athletes to slot inside the top 20. Jameson Webber was next in eighth, Benjamin Gillis followed in 10th and Anthony Adams rounded out the group in 17th.

Amherst’s Miles Jeffries took sixth overall, Frontier’s Adrien Pazmandy managed 11th and Hurricanes’ Wesley Dunford slid into the top-20 with a 16th-place finish.

The top Franklin County finisher in the decathlon was Greenfield’s Mason Youmell, who snagged fifth place overall. Youmell’s second place spot in the 1,500 proved to be the junior’s best discipline, despite primarily focusing on hurdles throughout the season.

“It feels pretty great for my first decathlon,” Youmell said. “I went into the 1,500 not knowing how it was going to go. I saw there was a guy fifth and I knew I had to beat him. I beat him and I did not know I had that time in me. It was a 4:42. I was shocked.”

Despite not having any prior experience in the grueling 10-event competition, Youmell tallied 5,054 points altogether and earned the most points in his specialty discipline (110 hurdles) with 738 points.

“This is my last meet of junior year, I just wanted to have a blast and I definitely had a blast,” Youmell said.

Youmell’s teammate Jack Laurie was the only other boys competitor from Franklin County to get a top-20 finish. Despite a foul in the long jump, Laurie still walked away with 4,247 points in the meet.

During the girls heptathlon, Franklin County’s best performer was Louise Flagollet of Pioneer, who recorded sixth place overall with 3,331 points. Flagollet banked the most points (736) in the high jump of all the disciplines.

Other top-20 finishers from Franklin County were Emmanuel Flagollet (Pioneer, 10th), Stellina Moore (Mahar Regional, 16th), Heidi Helenek (Mohawk Trail, 19th) and Zephyr Jetzon (Mohawk Trail, 20th).