WMass D1 Track: Amherst girls edge out Northampton to take home Western Mass. championship (PHOTOS)

HOLYOKE — It came down to the wire, but the Amherst Regional girls outdoor track team clipped fellow Hampshire County counterpart Northampton to win the Western Massachusetts Division 1 Championship on Friday at Holyoke High School.

The Hurricanes and Blue Devils were neck-and-neck for the top spot for most of the meet, until the ‘Canes solidified the title with an impressive first-place finish in the 4x400 relay—the last event of the night—to ride off into the moonlight as champions for the first time in more than two decades.

“We know we’re good in the 4x400,” Amherst girls coach Chris Gould said. “We have a pretty good stable full of 400 runners, they showed it in indoors. They won the prestigious Loucks Games a couple of weeks ago out in New York against very, very good competition. I just wasn’t sure exactly what the score was before that event and I was watching ‘Hamp run the same event and they clawed back from second.”

The Hurricanes won with a blazing time of 4:05.66, nearly eight seconds faster than the Blue Devils who clocked in at 4:13.51, to lock up their victory with 136.5 team points. Northampton concluded the meet with 115 points.

“When we looked at the seeding coming into it today, we did not think it would be this close, so we’re just super excited and proud that it ended up being as close as it was today,” Blue Devils girls coach Trey Jones said. “We have a history of doing really well at this meet and it was nice to be able to have a really good show again. I feel like a lot of the girls on this team, since they’ve done so well here, this is a place they really rise to the occasion and the best of them comes out.”

Unsurprisingly, Amherst was the fastest-seeded team ahead of the 4x400. The ‘Canes quartet of Ololara Baptiste, Skylar Fox, Ella Austin and Moriah Luetjen have dusted their competition for years, however on Friday, Amherst had to adjust as Luetjen did not compete.

In stepped Ruby Austin—Ella’s sister— and the Hurricanes looked just as dominant with a make-shift rotation. The senior ran the opening leg of the relay for Amherst and put her team in fantastic position the rest of the relay, proving Gould was right when it comes to 400 runners seemingly growing on trees for the ‘Canes.

“I like it and I thought I just had to get out and try to get the lead so the rest of my team doesn’t have to push quite as hard,” Ruby Austin said.

Northampton had a different experience as it exceeded expectations as the fifth-seeded team before the event. The Blue Devils’ foursome of Maddalena Figueroa-Starr, Ella Hoogendyk, Katherine Munson and Maeve O’Neill gritted out a second-place finish by slowly picking off teams with each proceeding runner to make sure Amherst earned its title victory.

“[Northampton] was incredible tonight,” Gould said. “Maybe they knew that they could give us a run. I didn’t know that they could give us a run, so that was really surprising to me and it scared me to death all night long. Eventually I just realized, even for these kids, they want to win but that’s not what it’s all about. We have other things that it’s all about, but I think they also felt like they worked so hard this year and they wanted to do everything they could to put themselves on top and they managed to pull it off. I really just have to salute Northampton and its athletes, they were astounding.”

Ruby Austin revealed the Blue Devils’ surge did in fact force the Hurricanes’ final relay squad to find that extra gear within themselves in the close-out event of the meet.

“I think we came into the race knowing we were seeded first and by a lot, but I think we knew when it got close at the end...well one of our best runners wasn’t here today, so that shifted everyone’s plans,” Austin said. “We realized Northampton was actually really close and it was going to be more of a competition than we expected. I think right before that last race, all of us thought ‘this is it, we need to leave everything on the track’. We switched up our order and everything, but we really had to fight for it and I think that kind of makes winning even better because we deserved it more, I think.”

Ruby Austin was also a key component in Amherst overtaking Northampton’s team score as one of three ‘Canes runners to grab a top four finish in the 400. Baptiste crossed in first place in 58.86 seconds, then Ruby Austin followed in 59.23 seconds, before Ella Austin took fourth in 1:02.25, good for 23 team points for Amherst in just one event. Munson got third for the Blue Devils with a time of 1:01.99 to give her team six points.

Elsewhere for the Hurricanes, Elizabeth Sawicki was the lone individual to win multiple events for the ‘Canes as the senior placed first in the 400 hurdles (1:06.68) and 100 hurdles (16.28 seconds). Sawicki almost won a third event with a second-place result in pole vault (nine feet), while Fox snatched first in the 800 (2:18.25) as Amherst ended up with five first-place finishes altogether.

“Elizabeth was astounding,” Gould said. “She won both hurdles, she PR’d in everything, all three events tonight. She tied the school record in the pole vault. She’s one-hundreth of a second off our 400-hurdles school record right now, she’s mad about that one. The fact that she won the 100 hurdles.I mean this is a girl who was our top cross country runner a couple years ago. That’s just a weird range. She did really well.”

Claire Fortin had a strong meet for Amherst as well, placing within the top four in all three events she competed in, with the best coming in the 100 with a runner-up finish in 12.98 seconds.

And by the way, the Hurricanes did all of this during rainy, wintry weather, so it’s safe to say this victory with be a memorable one for all involved.

“We’ve had many years where we’re really close and it usually comes down to Northampton and us,” Ruby Austin said. “It was really exciting that finally [Friday] all of our work paid off. We’ve been really working for it. During indoor we had a shot at winning and then the Western Mass. meet got canceled because of snow, so this is our second chance. I think we’re all really, really happy that we did it.”

On the flip side, the Blue Devils compiled an astonishing nine second-place finishes throughout the girls events. Mairead O’Neill had a pair of them in the mile (5:19.46) and two mile (11:57.30), while Hoogendyk earned two seconds in the 400 hurdles (1:08.23) and the triple jump (35 feet, six inches). Maeve O’Neill (800, 2:21.00), Eleanor Lewis (high jump, four feet, 10 inches), Camilla Brewer (100 hurdles, 17.24 seconds) and the 4x400 and 4x800 relay teams rounded out all nine of Northampton’s runner-ups.

“We had some people doubling and tripling today,” Jones said. “We had Ella Hoogendyk and Mairead O’Neill and Maddalena [Figueroa-Starr] who all tripled for us and scored in multiple places and medaled in multiple events. It was great.”

Figueroa-Starr also competed in the 800 (third place, 2:22.90) and the 400, to go along with the 4x400 relay, for the Blue Devils.

Despite not taking home the first-place plaque for the first time since pre-Covid, Jones knows his athletes can use this as momentum for the upcoming state meets.

“We had a few more kids qualify today, so we’re taking a really big group, which I think helps,” Young said. “I think the more you can take, the more of a celebration of the season it can be. It’s nice to see people get rewarded and be able to keep the season going.”

Holyoke’s best finishes in the girls events came from Yasani Thompson in the 200 (third, 26.13 seconds) and Kayshaly Garcia in the long jump (third, 16 feet, five inches).

Alfandari highlights area boys athletes at WMass meet

Amherst’s Logan Alfandari muscled past the competition in the boys shot put, winning the event with a throw of 56 feet, five point fifty inches. Alfandari’s toss was about 10 feet longer than James Kaylor’s (Longmeadow) second-place throw. Alfandari also took second in the discus with a distance of 168 feet, eight inches.

Calvin Miller’s second-place finish in the two mile (4:25.95) counted as the Hurricanes’ only individual runner up. Amherst’s 4x800 relay team took second in a time of 8:19.21.

Three ‘Canes got third place in Moniha Krouch (discus, 146 feet, two inches), Nicholas Lisle (mile, 4:26.69) and Miles Jeffries (400, 50.60 seconds). Three was Amherst’s lucky number as the boys squad took third overall as a team with 74 points.

The Purple Knights’ Ryan Kennedy earned second in the 400 hurdles after crossing the line in 57.35 seconds as their best finisher. Jayderson Lugo (fourth, 400) and Jaybriel Rivera Soto (fourth, 110 hurdles) joined Kennedy as top-five finishers to help Holyoke accumulate 22 team points.

For Northampton, August Geha was its best boys individual with a sixth-place finish in the 100, while its 4x800 relay team managed fifth as its best event of the meet. The Blue Devils tallied 10 points altogether.

Longmeadow won the boys meet with ease, securing the championship with 194.5 points.