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Jillian Edwards clears the bar in the high jump against Fitch; the senior tied for first in the event. Photo by Marc Allard/Woodstock Academy.
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Track
Far left: Julia Coyle runs by herself in the 3200-meter race. The senior captured first in the event and the 1600-meter in the win over Fitch. Top, near left: The baton is handed between seniors as Talia Tremblay, rear, hands off to Reegan Reynolds in the 4x400m relay. Reynolds, who also won the long and triple jumps, helped the relay team to the win over Fitch. Bottom, left: Juliet Allard clears the final obstacle in the 300-meter hurdle race enroute to a 1st-place finish against Fitch, one of her four 1st-place finishes. Photos by Marc Allard/Woodstock Academy.
The table is set. Now, the girls’ track team has to execute and will have to do so on the road.
The Centaurs are hungry for a repeat of their ECC Div. I title performance of a year ago.
After a 113-36 win over Fitch on Wednesday, only one hurdle remains.
Woodstock has to come up with a win over NFA in Norwich on Wednesday.
“That would be insane,” junior Juliet Allard said of the potential to repeat. “It’s so good especially as a smaller school. We have a smaller team, much smaller than a bunch of others, I think we have half of the number of East Lyme.”
But the Centaurs were successful against the Vikings. So were the Wildcats.
NFA downed East Lyme on Wednesday 103-47. The Centaurs prevailed 105-44 over the Vikings.
“NFA to go and looking at numbers, the meet should be a good one,” coach Josh Welch said. ”I think we have a good shot at beating them but they’re a little stronger than Fitch and East Lyme.”
The Centaurs (2-0, 2-0 ECC Div. I) needed that as the meet against the Falcons was not all that competitive.
Another reason for athletes like senior Reegan Reynolds; it was her last athletic outing on the home turf.
“That’s really crazy to me,” Reynolds said. “I’ve been doing this since freshman year and it’s kind of like all my other sports. I kept saying all year that I still had track so it’s not my last Senior Night but (Wednesday) is kind of a sad moment for sure—my last time here.”
Reynolds and Allard led the way.
Allard captured first-place finishes in the 100-meter (12.5 seconds); 300-meter hurdles (48 seconds) and both the 4x100m relay (with Elise Coyle, Ella Lidonde and Emma Weitknecht) and the 4x400m relay (with Reynolds, Weitknecht and Talia Tremblay).
“I’m really proud,” Allard said of the four first-place finishes. ”I knew they had really strong 100m runners so I was a little nervous about that but it was a really good run for me as I had a (personal best) by about (5/10’s of a second). That’s a lot for me because I had not gone sub-13 yet. I was really excited about that. I think I can still get my time down in the 300m hurdles a bit but I was happy with it.”
Reynolds added a pair of individual wins in the long jump (15-feet, 4-inches) and triple jump (32-4) in addition to the 4x400m relay win.
Senior Julia Coyle won both the 1600 and 3200m races and Lily Morgis took first in both the discus and javelin.
Senior Jillian Edwards tied for first in the high jump with sophomore Isabel D’Alleva-Bochain winning the 800m, Tremblay won the 400m and Avery Plouffe captured the shotput.
Welch added, because of the Centaurs’ dominance, the meet did give him a chance to work on a few things.
Welch said, like usual, Allard “killed it.”
“Not her greatest times (with the exception of the 100m) but solid times. She was coming off the (twisted) ankle in the barrel-roll (in the 300m hurdles) at East Lyme so this shows she has bounced back. She has a lot more under there, though.”
Edwards, in addition to tying for first-place in the high jump, had second-place finishes in both pole vault and 100m.
Elise Coyle was second in long jump and 400m; D’Alleva-Bochain took a second in the javelin, Plouffe was second in discus, Olivia Tracy took seconds to Coyle in both the 1600 and 3200m races and Tremblay was second in the 200m.
Boys’ Track
It was a first for sophomore Eli Manning. Manning captured first-place finishes in the shotput, javelin and discus for a first time in a dual meet.
The Manning performance was impressive but wasn’t enough on its own to garner the Centaurs a win as they fell to Fitch in a boys’ track meet in Groton, 109.67-40.33.
The loss dropped Woodstock to 0-2 overall and in Div. I of the ECC.
Discus was Manning’s favorite, at least, among the throwing events as he cleared 122-feet, 7-inches. He also threw the shotput 39-6 ½ and the javelin 128-2.
He wants to qualify for the States in both of those events against NFA. “I’m a foot and a half off in shotput and I’m 8 feet away in javelin,” he said.
But his proudest moment on Wednesday came in a totally unrelated event.
“It was the first time I had done pole vault and I cleared 7 feet,” Manning said. “I’m training to do the decathlon later this year and I need to do the pole vault for that.”
The only other first-place finish for Woodstock belonged to Christian Menounos in the 400m.
Charlie Caggiano (800m), Colton Sallum (3200m), the 4x400m relay team (Caggiano, Aiden Bachand, Aiden Tyler, and Menounos), Joel Koleszar (1600m), Collin Teal (pole vault) and Thatcher Paterson (triple jump) all had second-place finishes.
The Centaurs host Norwich Free Academy in their only home meet of the season on Wednesday on South Campus.
Marc Allard
Director of Sports Information
The Woodstock Academy
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