NEWARK VALLEY – The Norwich Purple Tornado boys and girls Track and Field team took to the road for another weekend invitational – coming home with a solid team finish at fourth and seventh, respectively out of 21 teams.
On the boys side of the Red, White, Blue and Gold Invitational, it was in fact Ithaca who pulled away – winning the weekend with 69 team points, as they bested second-place Maine-Endwell at 54 points. The Norwich boys finished fourth with 52 points, behind Owego who managed 53 points. The Greene Trojans put their best foot forward, but with a depleted roster failed to score any team points – resulting in a last place finish on Saturday, April 8.
The girls saw a much less competitive run when it came to team finishes, as Lansing simply dominated all in their path with a weekend invitational win coming by way of 103 team points. Lansing defeated the Ithaca girls who managed a second-place finish with 85 team points – the Tornado girls slid in tied for seventh place with Trumansburg at 26 points. Greene would finish 17th out of 21 teams with six points on the day.
Despite various meet records being broken this past Saturday – when host Newark Valley’s Courtney McNeil (100m 12.51) and Keira Malarkey (Female MVP, High Jump 5’3”) took to the track – Norwich put forth a showing of their own where they successfully managed three personal best times as well as an MVP of their – all coming by way of the sprinting events.
Although a senior, Norwich’s Ky’sawn Veale is seeing his first year as a varsity Track and Field athlete start with quit some pop.
Veale finished first in his qualifying heat in the 110m hurdles with a time of 17.50 seconds, qualifying him for the finals. That is when Veale – already having snagged a personal best time at 17.50 seconds – decided to kick it into gear when he flew to a second-place finish in the event with his newest PR time of 17.36 seconds. Veale edged out Matt Schneider of Union-Endicott (18.01 seconds) while being bested for the top podium spot by Homer’s Paul Morse (16.56 seconds).
Notably, Veale has proved to not just be a solid hurdler and sprinter – but has not solidified himself in the jumping events when he came home with a second-place podium finish in the Long Jump as well. Veale finished second on the day with his best jump of 19’10.00” – landing him in second-place behind Aaron Davis of Union-Endicott. Veale also grabbed an eighth place finish in the Triple Jump when he bounded his way to a solid 37’10.50 jump.
Norwich’s ever-fast 4x100 meter relay team (David Berger, Ky’sawn Veale, Zack Race, and Eric Conant) dashed their way to a solid day, placing third in the finals. Norwich’s sprinting relay managed to qualify for the finals following a slow start to the day when they ran a 46.02 time, only to see that bested in the finals with a 45.87 – losing to Ithaca and Trumansburg by mere tenths of a second – when they ran a 45.36 second final and a 45.29 second final, respectively.
Norwich and Greene both took to the starting blocks when the 100 meter dash rolled around, however, with three entrants in the event for each school, it was Norwich who qualified two for the finals while the Trojans failed to move any runners on.
Norwich’s Zack Race, impressively tied the NHS school record in the event last weekend in Vestal at the NY/PA Invitational when he ran an 11.01 FAT time, taking first-place. Fast forward to week two of Race’s junior campaign and he nearly bested that mark in the qualifying round when he ran a blazing fast 11.03.
Notably, Norwich’s school record – which was set at 10.8 seconds by Jason Morris – was clocked at using the method of hand-timed.
In the current format of New York State high school track and field, all records must be set using the FAT computer system – it is widely believed that due to human error in a hand-timed races, that a sprint in the 100-200 meter range roughly would be .24 slower when using the Fully Automatic Time (FAT system) – which equates to Race’s time of 11.03 being equal to a 10.79 second hand-timed 100 meter dash.
Race finished first in his qualifying heat to advance to the finals. Despite the hype and sheer speed of Race, Norwich has another secret weapon when it comes to the sprints, sophomore Eric Conant. Conant finished first in his qualifying heat (running a personal best time of 11.35 seconds) which then qualified him for the finals alongside Race.
Race and Conant looked to dominate the finals, however, with slower times across the board in the finals – no personal best times ensued. Despite the slower times in the finals, Race would finish atop the podium, taking home first with a time of 11.28 seconds, while Conant would barely slip to fourth place with an 11.60 second time, when he was narrowly edged by Logan Roux of Maine-Endwell (11.56 seconds), and Aaron Davis (11.58 seconds), respectively.
Race and Conant would meet again in the 200 meter final standings – as both Tornado runners managed to finish in the top eight. Race snagged another top podium finish when he ran a 22.75 seconds for a first-place spot. Conant managed to finish eighth with a time of 24.13. Impressively, Race would be named boys MVP of the track events, due to his impressively dominating times so early in the season.
The Norwich boys also saw strong performances from their 4x400 meter relay team (Noah Bufalini, Gabe Gawronski, Scott Tomanocy, and James Heath), as well as from Gawronski himself in the 800 meter run.
The 4x400 meter relay managed to pace themselves with some of the area’s best to improve their time enough to take home a fifth place finish overall. Norwich landed in fifth in the event with a time of 3:51.36 – only being bested by the Indians narrowly, when they ran a 3:49.37 for fourth place.
