Amy Hunter (third from right) races her way to a gold medal in the 100-meter dash at the district finals May 31. (Photo by Jonathan Route)
Once again fueled by sophomore Amy Hunter, the Bromfield girls’ track team took fourth place out of 44 teams in the small-school Division 2 Track Championship for central and western Massachusetts.
Hunter had a standout performance, grabbing a gold medal in the 100-meter dash after narrowly defeating the runner-up, Allie Smylie from Notre Dame Academy, by a mere .01 seconds. Hunter’s time of 12.80 was a personal record and only 0.1 second off the Bromfield School record held by Katherine Finnegan. In the triple jump, Amy’s effort of 34 feet 9 inches fell well short of her personal best but was good enough for silver, adding eight more points to the team total. She completed her competition by anchoring the 4x100m relay to bring home another second-place finish. Amy was joined by Heather Flokos, Suzy Opalka, and Sarah Doben for a time of 51.88, bettering their previous best for the year by nearly a full second.
Sophomore Carlisle Ferguson crashed her own school record by 9 inches with a 10-03 pole vault, taking first place. Ferguson was fourth in last year’s divisional meet and 18th at the 2013 All-State meet. With this impressive performance, Ferguson will be vying for a top-eight finish at All-State this year.
Also improving from last year’s performance was junior Brianna Harte in the discus. Harte moved up from ninth to third this season with a throw of 102-11 and will be joining Ferguson, Hunter, and the 4×100 relay at the All-State meet this week at Bridgewater State College. (The top four places in each event qualify.)
The final scoring event for Bromfield came in the girls’ 4x400m relay team’s eighth-place finish. Bettering their time by a full three seconds, the squad of eighth-graders Alex Saganich and Nina Sklar, ninth-grader Maddie Steele, and eleventh-grader Emma Borton added another point to the team total.
Although not scoring for the team, the 4x800m relay of Talbot Chipman, Kate Toll, Arielle Sclar, and Sophia Collins turned in an impressive race. Ranked 21st going into the meet, the girls rallied to a 10th-place finish, improving their season best by a full 25 seconds. Also setting a personal best for this season was Kate Toll in the 2-mile.
The Lady Trojans’ cumulative team score of 43 was agonizingly close to a second-place finish. Only three points separated them from second-place Sutton (46) and third-place finisher Frontier (45.5). Notre Dame Academy of Worcester ran away with the meet with 63 points.
Bromfield coach Dave Boisvert will not be losing any of his talented team to graduation this year and will expect to be in the hunt for a team title next spring.
With more big-meet experience for his young athletes and having a full squad return next year (standout Deirdre Kennedy was unable to compete this past week), it is likely to be a stellar 2015 track season.
Parker charter school’s Von Conta is All-State bound
Also competing at the Central/Western Massachusetts Division 2 Track Championships was Harvard resident and Parker Charter’s eighth-grader Phoebe von Conta. Von Conta finished a blazing 2-mile in 11:26.38, narrowly missing third place by .01 seconds. As fourth-place finisher, she will be competing at this week’s All-State Championship in Bridgewater as well.
Bromfield girls’ results
- 100 meter–1, Amy Hunter, 12.80
- 200m–18, Sarah Doben, 28.15, 21, Natalie O’Leary, 28.31
- 400m–14, Alex Saganich, 1:05
- 2-mile–24, Kate Toll, 12:37.44
- 400m hurdles–12, Maddie Steele 1:12.19
- 4x800m relay–10, Talbot Chipman, Kate Toll, Arielle Sclar, Sophia Collins, 10:39.43
- 4x400m relay–8, Maddie Steele, Nina Sklar, Emma Borton, Alex Saganich, 4:21.6
- 4x100m relay–2, Sarah Doben, Suzy Opalka, Heather Flokos, Amy Hunter, 51.88
- Pole vault–1, Carlisle Ferguson, 10-03
- Triple jump–2, Amy Hunter, 34-09
- Discus–3, Brianna Harte, 102-11
- Shot put–11, Brianna Harte, 30-09
- Team scores–1, Notre Dame Academy 63, 2, Sutton 46, 3, Frontier 45.5, 4, Bromfield, 43
