BAINBRIDGE – The weather for the Bainbridge-Guilford/Afton Spring Break Invitational was the worst in the meet’s four-year history, yet records fell like ripe apples off a tree on Saturday.
A total of 20 records were broken in windy, cold conditions, many coming while running into the wind or through a heavy crosswind. “Given the weather, the (number of records) was surprising,” said B-G/Afton coach Robb Munro. “The last three years, the weather was gorgeous. (Saturday) was the worst weather we’ve had, by far, and lot of records went down.”
Munro singled out the 3,200-meter final as one of the showcase races of the entire meet. It came down to cross country specialist Caleb Edmonds of Cooperstown, and Greene miler Chad Noelle. Edmonds was coming down from his usual race length, and Noelle was moving up a distance. Noelle held close, and used a stronger finishing kick to win by two seconds. “Chad represented Greene in the indoor season, but he trained with us, and we working on building his strength,” Munro said. “This was a good test to see how the training was working. It’s working well, I guess.”
B-G/Afton’s “A Team” distance medley set a meet record by 32 seconds, and the Bears’ B team, in the same event, placed second just two seconds behind the previous record. “That’s eight guys running as well as any distance medley we’ve had at this meet,” Munro said.
Elsewhere, Oxford’s Emily Woodford set new meet records in the 200-meter dash and triple jump. Woodford’s twin sister, Katie, set a new record in the 100-meter preliminaries en route to a first-place finish. “Most of the sprint times were a little slow because there was a hefty headwind,” Munro said, who estimated times were about half a second slower than ideal conditions. “The times may not look good, but what the Woodfords did was extremely impressive.”
Norwich sophomore, Patrick Taylor set a meet record in the long jump with a leap of 20-feet-1/2-inch, and Taylor added a first-place finish for the Tornado in the triple jump.
Bears eighth-grader Isamarie Ramos won a nailbiter in the 400-meter dash edging defending champion and meet recordholder Christine Conroe by just 31-hundreths of a second.
“For only four years of the meet, some of the records we now have here are pretty high level,” Munro said.
