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DyeStat 2001 Indoor
National Indoor Championship report
Alan Webb rouses crowd again
By Pearl Watts
Editor's Note: Pearl writes and announces HS track in Northern Virginia, but when it comes to the boys distance races the local perspective (Alan Webb) is the same as the national perspective.
Once again, Alan Webb of South Lakes proved to be a capacity crowd favorite; this time with his win in the two mile run at the Nike Indoor Classic in Landover, MD on Sunday. Webb's winning time of 8 minutes, 45.19 seconds moved him to number three on the all time high school indoor list and was the fastest time run at the two mile distance indoors on a 200 meter track since 1979.
In the race, Webb and his future University of Michigan teammate Nick Brannen of Ontario, Canada broke from the pack early and established a very steady early pace of 32.5 for the first 220 yards; 64.5 at 440 yards and 2:09 at the 880 yard mark with Webb leading and Brannen right on his heels. Webb then gradually lengthened his lead over Brannen in coming through three quarters of a mile at 3:13 and the mile at 4:19.
When the mile split was immediately posted on the scoreboard and with almost everyone in attendance knowing the national high school record was 8:40.0, the already vocal crowd stepped up their noise level even more. Webb by this time had a lead over Brannen of about forty yards and continued to increase the lead, but the hot early pace had started to show with Webb covering the next 880 yards in 2:13 to be at 6:32 for one and a half miles.
Fighting to maintain his form and obviously feeling the strain of the endeavor, Webb also covered the next half mile in 2:13 and was still able to muster a final lap of 32 seconds in finishing at 8:45.19 (8:42.14 equivalent for 3,200 meters). Brannen was second in 8:57.28 with nine of the twelve runners in the fast section running faster than 9:17.
Webb, who has set national high school records of 3:59.86 for the mile and 2:23.68 for 1,000 meters this indoor season, now finds on the two mile list only the national mark of 8:40.0 by Gerry Lindgren (Spokane, WA) in 1964 and the 8:42.7 by Jeff Nelson (Burbank, CA) in 1979 ahead of him with Dave Merrick of New Lenox, IL running 8:43.2 on a larger than 200 meter track back in 1971.
South Lakes coach Scott Raczko said, "I'm surprised Alan ran that fast, to be honest. He's been fighting a head cold recently and I actually wasn't sure if we were going to pull him out of the race or not as of last night. He certainly ran a good, tough race considering the circumstances."
The two mile was the second race of the weekend for Webb, with the South Lakes senior having anchored the Seahawks distance medley relay to the number three national time ever of 10:05.72 on Saturday evening as they finished second to Atlantic Community of DelRay Beach, FL; who moved to mumber two on the all time list at 10:03.70.
In the distance medley South Lakes leadoff runner Richard Smith clocked 3:09 for his 1,200 leg but the Seahawks trailed Atlantic by almost forty meters after their excellent leadoff split of 3:03.4 by Sean Jefferson. Atlantic maintained their advantage over South Lakes after Justin Smyser's 400 leg (52.9) and Kanda Karmo's 800 carry of 2:00.5 with Atlantic anchor John Jefferson getting the baton at 5:56.6 and Webb at 6:02.4.
The six second advantage proved to be too much even for Webb. Even though Webb ran 1:59 for his first 800 meters, John Jefferson ran 2:01 on his opening 800 to still have a four second advantage. Webb was able to halve the deficit the rest of the way, but no more, as he split 4:03.3 and Jefferson ran a personal best of 4:07.1.
The marks of 10:03.70 by Atlantic and 10:05.72 by South Lakes trail only the national mark of 9:59.94 set last year by Gloucester, MA with West Springfield's 10:10.30 from 1998 now fourth.
On the girls side, Jefferson's Kelley Otstott followed up her double victory from the Virginia state meet of a week ago with two good races again on Sunday. In the girl's mile run Otstott took the lead after the first lap on the 200 meter unbanked track and held it through the first 1,000 meters until Erin Donahue of Haddonfield, NJ made a strong move and held on to win in 4:51.15 with Otstott finishing fourth in 4:56.28.
Otstott, who was a late addition to the girl's 800 meter field, then came back an hour and a half later to win her section of the 800 in 2:15.69 to place third overall with Nicole Cook of Petersburg, VA the winner of the fastest seeded section and overall champ at 2:15.39.
Krystle Moss, Otstott's senior teammate at Jefferson, also had a good day with her second place finish in the high jump at 5 feet, 8.75 inches. For Moss, her runnerup height of 5-8.75 was a seasonal best and matched her all time best set outdoors in her sophomore season. The event was won by national leader Sheena Gordon of Erie, PA at 5-10.75.
Gordon was one of the outstanding performers at the meet as she also won the triple jump at 41-4 and placed fourth in both the long jump and 60 meter hurdles.
Oakton's Bonnie Meekins also recorded a second place finish with her 3,126 points in the pentathlon. The top event in the five event indoor pentathlon (60 meter hurdles, high jump, shot put, long jump, 800 run) for Meekins was the high jump at 5-7, which was good for 855 points and Meekins finished up nicely in the 800 run at 2:39.06 (584 points). Desiree Jones of Wilmington, OH was the winner with 3,356 points with the difference over Meekins the 236 point advantage Jones recorded in the shot put.
Oakton had another second place finish with their sprint medley relay team of Kathleen Woody and Sarah Kirtland on the first two 200 meter legs, Emily Johnbull on the 400 and Keira Carlstrom with a 2:16.0 anchor 800 carry for their runnerup time of 4:10.62. In other girls events, Langley was fourth in the 4x1 mile relay at 22:02.94 with their team of Lindsey Schultz, Maria Takahashi, Allison Twomey and Leslie Schultz with Hayfield sixth (22:16.86) as national leader Rockford, MI won in 20:48.10. West Springfield's Mo Hagan was ninth in the 800 run (2:17.77) while Robinson placed sixth in the 4x800 relay at 9:34.00 and Langley sixth (9:36.29) with Boys and Girls of Brooklyn, NY the winner in 9:11.82.
In other boys results at the Nike Classic, Hayfield's Ron Richards had a swift anchor leg to move the Hawks to third in the 4x200 relay (1:31.57) and Richards also anchored Hayfield to third in the 4x400 relay (3:25.87). Hayfield was also second in the sprint medley relay (3:37.25) while Robinson was seventh (18:39.47) and Herndon tenth (18:46.44) in the 4x1 mile relay.
South Lakes, without Richard Smith and Alan Webb, was sixth in the 4x800 relay (8:09.50) while in the 800 run, Smith was fifth in 1:55.73 with Oakton's Phil Gaeta seventh (1:56.38).
The meet brought together many of the top individuals and relay teams in the nation with boys field event winners including Sage Thames of Texas in the pole vault (17-0), Keith Moffat of Menchville High from Newport News with a personal best of 7-0.25 to win the high jump, Alonzo Moore of Phoebus (Hampton, VA) moving from fourth in the trials to first in the finals of the triple jump (48-5.25) and Jonathan Reeves from Houston, Texas claiming the shot put at 66-11.25 over defending champion Kevin Bookout of Stroud, Oklahoma (65-2.75).
In boys running events, Jerome Mathis of Petersburg, VA easily took the 200 dash in 21.79, Atlee's Brian Ford was third in the 400 dash (49.14), Marc Sylvester of Cleveland, OH roared from behind in the final 200 meters to win the 800 run in 1:52.75; Louisville, KY sophomore Bobby Curtis just caught Handley's Bobby Lockhart at the finish to win in 4:12.00 with Lockhart second (4:12.11) and Camden, NJ won both the 4x200 (1:30.45) and 4x400 (3:17.26) relays.
In girls events, Laura Gerraughty of Nashua, NH, national shot put record holder at 53-11, captured her specialty at 52-2 and William Penn of Philadelphia, PA was the class of the field in the 4x200 (1:41.75) and 4x400 (3:47.53) relays.
The National Scholastic Indoor Championships at the Armory in New York City produced five new national indoor records on the swift 200 meter banked track. Junior Samantha Shepard of Weston, MA set a new girls pole vault standard of 13-3.5; Wilson High of Long Beach, CA set a girls sprint medley relay record at 3:53.17; junior Brendan Christian set a new national mark of 21.02 in the boys 200 dash with runnerup Glenn McFadden of New Haven, CT also under the old mark at 21.05 and Angel Perkins from Cerritos, CA set two new marks with her wins in the girls 200 dash (23.59) and 400 dash (53.25).
There was one area winner in David Sullivan of Centreville, who recorded a personal best in winning the boys pole vault at 15-2.75. The Wildcats also had Mark Kupets third in the boys vault at 14-9 and Centreville junior Alicia LaRoche set a personal best while placing sixth in the girls pole vault at 11-2.75 with Lake Braddock's Sara Monaco and Kathryn Pettine of Westfield also recording personal bests in tieing for seventh place at 10-8.25.
Boys and girls indoor state team champ Lake Braddock put together a handful of fine performances in relay events. The Bruins quartet of Mike Yakovac, Pat Buchanan, Frank Francois and Jimmy Judge were second in the boys sprint medley at 3:28.67 with Simon Gratz High of Philadelphia, PA the winner in 3:28.29. Lake Braddock's 4x200 team of Yakovac, Buchanan, Craig Gallimore and Francois ran a seasonal best of 1:30.15 for fifth place in a very swift competition which saw New York's Campus Magnet winning in 1:28.03 with New York's Poly Prep second at 1:28.32 while Deep Creek (VA) was third in 1:29.29 and DeMatha (MD) was fourth in 1:29.41. The Lake Braddock boys also put together their best time of the season in the 4x800 relay with the team of Peter Gardella, Steve Hoogland, Frank Francois and Jimmy Judge running 7:55.49 for sixth place with John Jay of New York the winner in 7:46.83.
The Lake Braddock girls top finishing relay team was their 4x400 relay squad of Shawnette Adams, Meredith Brill, Courtney Sanders and Sarah Beale as they ran their best time of the season of 3:52.90 for seventh place with Wilson of Long Beach, CA blazing to the win in 3:43.70 as their star sprinter, Lashinda Demus, recorded a 53.2 split. Lake Braddock also had Kelly Swain finish sixth in the 3,200 run in 11:22.42 with Cheryl Carr ninth (11:34.87) as Bingham, Utah's Laura Zeigle won in 10:26.68 and Alexandra VanHeuven was tenth in the triple jump with a distance of 38-1.25.
Return to Nike Indoor Classic results page
