If you’ve been following along, it’s no surprise that we didn’t have high hopes for a team title. Before I start though, got to give it to the winners: HH won 11 out of the 18 events to our none. That being said, we took away a few small victories.
Relays – 4×800 On paper, even without Chase Bethea’s 2:03, the 4×8 had a shot at the 8:12.24 District Qualifying Standard. With 3 guys around 2:04 – 2:05 and Grayson Ruffner’s sub 2 min leg, we’d be close. After two legs (Brendan Tatko 2:04.4 PR, Branden Haines 2:04.4 PR) we found ourselves in the lead. Hatboro saved their best for legs 3-4. We needed a big lead to guarantee a win but state indoor 3000 champ Brian Dicola brought Hatboro from last to a close second at the final hand-off making it a race between Grayson and their top kid. Grayson is 0 – 3 against him and this would be no different as he passed us on the backstretch for the win, dragging Grayson to a 1:58.4 PR and the squad to 8:11.51.
4×1 – We can’t seem to get out of our own way with another zone violation disqualification (zone 1) resulting in a DNF (did not finish). DQ’s in both the Hatboro (zone 2) and Quakertown (zone 3) duals and an injury at Penn Relays.
4×4 – With both Isaiah and Chase sidelined, three of the four legs would be coming off the 800 final. Normally, not a problem but with thunderstorms looming, meet management decided to skip the 1/2 hour rest after the 200. That’s a problem. The kids were gassed, limping home dead last in 3:40. Props to Rowen Aten for anchoring in a PR 52.0 in spite of being way out of it.
Sprints – Without Isaiah (10.91/21.65) or Chase (22.91) in there, the 100/200 looked like an age-group summer meet with nobody under 11.20 or 23.00. Out of the two events, we only managed a third place in the 100 (Jaylen Foster 11.52) and nobody in the 200 final. Hatboro kid won both with pedestrian marks of 11.25 and 23.06.
Distance – We put alot of eggs in the 800 basket which resulted in some PR’s and grabbing places 3, 4 (Brendan Tatko 2:03.13) and 6 (Branden Haines 2:05.11) with Grayson Ruffner hitting the district mark in third (1:59.24). He took the lead at 400 but couldn’t hold off his HH nemesis and the PW kid nipping him at the line. Gray was visibly frustrated as the HH kid is not what you’d call gracious in victory. As a sophmore, he’s still learning and has tremendous up-side.
HH’s Brian DiCola could have mailed in the 1600 and 3200 and that’s pretty much what happened. Out of scoring range, we had some PR’s with Joey Linville’s 4:54.11 and Alex Gobin (4:59.28) dipping under 5:00 for the first time. (Watching his teammates great him at the finish, you’d think he won! Great to see.)
Hurdles – Aditya Shah has been sitting at #3 in the division and he finished as expected in the 110’s. Freshman Andrew Gajan’s improvement continues as he PR’d for the 3rd time in as many outings, his 18.06 didn’t make the final but standing well over 6′ tall already, expect big thing from him. The top 300H seed going in was our guy. With Chase Bethea being absent, we failed to score. (a false start added insult to injury)
Jumps – Another bright spot as far as PRs go, the triple jump saw all three Wiss Kids hit season best marks. Seeded 8th coming in, Vikram Iyer had a series of jumps a foot over his previous best grabbing a surprise 2nd place (39-9). Adity Shah grabbed third (39-8PR) and Mike Ross had a PR in 6th (37-8).
Throws – With our shot put lagging all season, the discus and jav have shown steady improvements. Soph Julian Perkins is getting the hang of both. A ten-foot PR (121-8) in the disc got him a third place medal which he duplicated in the Javelin ( 123-11 3rd place).
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