Boys’ Track Dominates at Belmont Hill
The boys’ track team travelled to Belmont Hill this past Saturday to compete against three schools: Belmont Hill, Pingree and Hyde. Exeter came away with a clear victory, scoring 120 points to Belmont Hill’s 90, Hyde’s 34 and Pingree’s 14. Their record now stands at 9-1.
The circumstances going into the meet were unusually tough. The uppers, a significant portion of the team, had to wake up early to take SATs, and many other athletes had recently experienced injuries that prevented them from competing. Despite these problems, Big Red triumphed at the competition, coming home with their heads held high returning home confident.
As usual, the boys’ track team proved their consistency through their outstanding results. Their strongest events were the relays, which the team has excelled at throughout the season. In fact, so far, the team has not lost a single 4x100 or 4x400 relay.
With just a couple of weeks left in the season, the team is looking to drop more times and continue the strong performances.
This meet was no different, with the boys grasping first place in the 4x100 relay. The team of upper Jaime Nunez, lower Josh Velazquez and seniors Matt Asante and Vincent Vaughns started off behind, but Vaughns’ anchor leg brought the team from second place to a dominating victory.
Another successful relay finished with a lead of 200 meters, which was the 4x400 team consisting of Vaughns, Velazquez, lower Julian Perez and upper Tayo Zenger.
“The relays seem to be a very consistent win for us, which is good, since Interschols is in two weeks,” Zenger said.
Another particularly impressive race was Perez’s 300-meter hurdles performance, in which he won the race by a large margin. Perez, who set the prep record in the event last year with a time of 42 seconds, now has the potential to reach the school record. It is just four seconds away from his reach. Things were also looking bright for the distance squad, who dominated both the 1500 and 3000 meter races.
The biggest highlight of the meet was arguably the 3000 meter race, in which people crowded around the track. Prep Joe Walewski and senior Rohan Nawalrai were the only runners from Big Red in the event, and after the gun went off, “they immediately started jockeying for the lead,” said upper Garrett Pitt.
Nawalrai and Walewski ended up taking first and second in what was an exciting race. “The two went back and forth countless times and pushed each other to go faster,” Pitt said.
Similarly, in the 1500 meter race uppers Garrett Pitt and Atticus Stonestrom used each other as pacers, securing first and second, with uppers Issay Matsumoto and Jiro Mizuno taking third and fourth.
With just a couple of weeks left in the season, the team is looking to drop more times and continue the strong performances.
Big Red has one more meet at home this Saturday before Interschols, which will be the athletes’ last opportunity to improve their performances before the championships. “We are hoping to improve our performances even further to get some good seed times for our championship race,” Matsumoto said.