This Saturday, the track and field team will travel to Phillips Exeter Academy to compete in the final meet of the season, the New England Championship. With a limit of two entries per event per school, a smaller squad will be making the trip to New Hampshire.
The meet will kick off at 10:30 AM with the start of a number of different field events. Following a brief opening ceremony at 12:25 PM, the track events will commence at 12:30 PM with the boys 4X100 meter. The Big Green relay team will see Milo Defay ‘18, Jake Gallehdari ‘17, Peter Pulai ‘18 and Gozzy Nwogbo ‘18 try to improve on a season best mark of 44.64 seconds.
In the short sprints, Gallehdari will be featured in the second heat of the preliminary round of the 100 meter dash having run a team best 11.45 seconds. The senior has put a great deal of focus on the drive phase this week and hopes to earn a spot in the final as one of the eight fastest runners on the day. On the girls side, Alexia Baker ‘19 will compete in the 100 meter dash as well. Baker ‘19 has shown improvement across a number of different events this spring, including the 100 meter hurdles and 200 meter dash, but will focus on the 100 this weekend.
In the 400 meter, Nwogbo will be running out of lane 1 and will have the luxury of being able to see his competition as a result. He has shown great improvement throughout the course of the season and will look to set another PR. Lily Louis ‘18 enters the event as the third seed with a time of 1:01.25 and with some quality competition she too should be able to improve on that marker.
The 800 meter will feature Victoria Patterson ‘20 and Louis who are both running in heat 3 while Ricardo Gonzalez ‘19 and Aditya Jha ‘17 will run on the boys side, both out of heat 1.
Moving up to the 1500 meter, team captain Hughes Benjamin ‘17 and Gonzalez will enter the race with a talented group of athletes. Benjamin enters the event as the second seed and is set for a great day. He will attempt the challenging double when he runs the 3000 meter later in the day. Ethan Thayumanavan ‘17 will also participate in the 3000. On the girls side, Patterson enters the event as the third seed while teammate Sarah Jane O’Connor ‘18 holds the 10th seed.
In the girls 3000, juniors Erin Hudson ‘18 and Helen Downes ‘18 will look to score for the Big Green. Hudson has enjoyed a very competitive spring and enters as the third seed.
In the hurdles, Ossie Heard ‘18 continues to show improvement in the 110 high hurdles and after a solid week of practice he is set for a great championship meet. Brian Weber ‘18 will run both the 110 and 300 meter hurdles.
The final event on the track will be both the girls and boys 4X400 meter relays.
Felicia Renelus ‘17 enters the long jump with a season best jump of 17-07.00 and is seeded third. The senior captain who will compete for Brown next year will also throw the javelin and enters with a PR of 81-01.
Louis has a spent of a great deal of this week focusing on her approach in the triple jump and is ready for a break out meet.
The high jump will see Heard and Mina Liang both look to set new PRs after a week of practice in warm weather under the guidance of Coach Belcher and teammate Neil Nie ‘19.
In the pole vault we will see Andres Milmo ‘17 focus in and improve on his current 10-06 mark. The senior has shown a great deal of dedication and hard work to the challenging event. Mary Mack ‘18 will compete for the girls and has shown solid improvement throughout the spring.
In the shot put, Dallas Hobbs ‘17 is the one seed and has proven to be one of the best thrower’s in Deerfield track and field history. He enters as the second seed in the discus as well. Teammate Matt Donovan ‘17 will look to eclipse the 40 foot mark in the shot. Ericka Ekhator ‘17 will also compete in both the shot put and discus and finds herself throwing in the second flight of both events. Misha Fan ‘18 will throw the discus and will compete in the first flight.
The Big Green are in for a great day at Exeter, stay tuned for results throughout the day tomorrow!
Go Big Green!
Boy seeds: http://www.sub5.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/NEPSTA-D1-men-seeds.htm
Girl seeds: http://www.sub5.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/NEPSTA-D1-women-seeds.htm
Schedule of events: https://www.exeter.edu/athletics