A Visit to the Track

After Saturday's Littleton rollerski I drove back to Andover, to the high school where the DI Eastern Mass track meet was going on, hoping to catch a couple of the CSU Jrs. in action.  I arrived just in time to watch Ellen Goldberg warming up for the discus.  Ellen and the discus you ask?  Aren't discus throwers generally beefy and muscular?  Well, yes, they generally are and Ellen is tall and lean and so I was eager to see how Ellen would do.  She was ranked second on the psych sheet for the meet.  Discus is a technique event involving a difficult spin move and timing the release just right.  From what I could see, Ellen has learned her craft well, making full use of her leverage and flexibility.  She had a really nice spin down and arced that disc out over 114 feet!  Then in the final she repeated that distance to take the win, with her team mate Tatiana in second.  Very impressive! 

Next up was Julia Schiantarelli running in the 4 x 800 meter relay.  Julia was pretty nervous because her coach at put her in as the anchor leg.  Julia's team ran well and handed off to Julia in a little group.  Julia Got passed early by one girl, but hung tough with a the group (Andrea Keklak from LS was waltzing home easily in first) and when I yelled at her to hang tough on the back stretch I wasn't convinced she was going to be able to, being in in 8th place at that point, but coming around the far turn Julia started to make a move and in the last 100 m hauled in two girls in front of her to bring her team home in the points in 6th place.  Nice running! 

Sorry if I missed anyone else at the meet.

Both Ellen and Julia are now headed to the state meet next weekend.  Good luck!!

Fabio forwarded the following two photos.

 

 Julia making her move in the last 100m (John Keklak photo)

Ellen and the other NNHS Captains with the 1st place team trophy (Jack Pryor photo)