Champions: Exeter Track Finishes First at Interschols

Big Red track and field dominated at Interschols on Saturday, with both boys and girls winning by a landslide against eleven other schools and securing a 94% personal record rate among Big Red’s competitors. The boys’ team ended with a final score of 94, 24 points ahead of second place Choate, and the girls’ with 116, a whopping 37 points ahead of Hotchkiss.

Going into the meet, Big Red had no expectations of winning both the boys’ and girls’ New England championships. Based on seed times of the other schools’ competitors, Exeter was not tipped as the favorite to win Interschols. "Both the boys’ and the girls’ team were going in as underdogs, not really expecting a win," senior Alex Yang said. "From the looks of it, it didn’t seem like we were going to do well."

The boys’ began the meet with a shaky and slow start, not competing as well as the team wanted to in the first event: the 4x100 meter relay. They finished in sixth place with a PR, but the group consisting of seniors Alex Yang and Sultan White, upper Darius Scott and lower Mason Polk felt that they could have done better. "In the beginning it really didn’t seem like things were fitting together," Yang said.

Big Red’s scores began improving during the hurdles and longer distance races. Exeter’s win can be credited to their depth. While the other schools had some outstanding athletes, they did not have as many hard-working and consistent runners as Exeter. Even if the boys’ team did not place first in every race, they were still able to win by racking up points with multiple top finishers per race rather than just one, like most of the remaining schools.

There were many notable performances on the day. Polk and White finished first and second place respectively in the 110 meter hurdles. Yang came in fourth place in the 100 meter dash, senior Kieran Scannell and lower Holden Hammontree placed fifth and sixth respectively in the 1500 meter run, Polk placed third in the 400 meter dash, upper John Kennealy and senior Ben Corson placed second and fourth place in the 800 meter run, Marcus Polk won the 300 meter hurdles, upper Tyler Courville won the 3000 meter run, the team placed second in the 4x400 meter relay, and won third and fourth place in shot put from seniors Alex Fuchs and Ben Mountain. "It was a great turnout," lower Warren Charleston said, "but that would be an understatement considering we came out of nowhere with that win."

The girls took off as soon as the meet began. "We started off the meet energized with the long jump and 4x1, with great performances from each event," senior Haley Baker said. "That really got the momentum rolling for the meet."

Exeter’s girls continued to win, with Baker nabbing first in the 100 meter hurdles with a school record of 14.98 seconds. Senior Veronica Scott placed second in the 400 meter dash as well as the 800 meter run, while lower Courtney Smith placed first. Senior Chiamaka Nnebe placed first in the women’s discus throw, prep Peace Kabari earned third in the triple jump, and upper Emily Moore won third in the pole vault event. Many more girls also won somewhere between first and sixth place in their event, scoring points for the team. "What really made this meet so great is that a lot of people really stepped up and out performed their seeds," Baker said.

All the athletes seem to credit the win to their humble attitudes coming into the meet. "We didn’t really go in with the attitude that we would win. I think that if we looked at the seed and said, ‘our athletes stack up really well against everyone else,’ I think that that attitude would have prevented us from competing the way we did," Yang said . "It would have made us overconfident. Everyone just really stepped up to the plate on the day of."

Baker agreed. "This was actually the first time that we didn’t pay too much attention to where we stood in relation to other teams going into the meet. We saw the preliminary seeds, but we really just wanted to focus on ourselves and make sure we put up the best marks that we could possibly do and hope that the score would take care of itself."

The team also credits the Championship win to everyone’s demeanor on the day of the meet. "Everyone was just trying to do their own part and focus on their own events, but there was still this team atmosphere," Scott said. "Even though people were trying to warm up for their events, everyone was cheering on their teammates in the throwing, running, jumping, and I think it was just the best team atmosphere that we’ve had all season in terms of people supporting each other."

As a senior on the team for her entire Exeter career, Baker reflected on Interschols and came to a positive conclusion. "I’m really, really happy with the way that my last Interschol meet went as part of the team. I’m really proud of everybody on the team for pulling out great performances all around," she said. "People think track’s an individual sport, but we really operated like one unit throughout the whole day and it was just such a great feeling."