Our final indoor meet of 2017 wasn’t quite as large as the previous two meets, due to the high school indoor track season being over, but it was still a hopping good time for a lot of people. 184 runners competed in 45 heats across 4 individual events and 1 relay for 404 total entries! Results are now up!
If we had meet MVPs, those awards would certainly have gone to Leon Atkins of the Auburn Pulsars and Allison Koch of Camden. Although his specialty is the 400m, since we didn’t have that event at this meet, Atkins ran almost everything else, taking first in the 200m and the 1 mile, second in the 60m, and anchoring the winning 4x400m relay team. Koch won the 60m and the 200m, and also anchored a women-only relay team.
But we wouldn’t realize how dominant they were going to be since the first race was the 3000m, which Evan Magnussen took out hard from the gun and held the lead all the way to the tape in 8:58. Patrick Queiroz of the University of Buffalo XC and Track Club took second in 9:05. For the women, Jordyn Naylon’s 10:40 outpaced the 11:04 by Karen Simmonds-Brady of the Auburn Pulsars.
In the 60m, Thomas White ran a commanding 6.69 to beat Leon Atkins, who crossed in 7.02. On the women’s side, Allison Koch of Camden took the win in 8.50 over Charlie Slusser of Southern Tier SOAR, who ran 8.70.
But after a false start that marred the final heat of the 200m, Leon Atkins showed what he could do, running a 23:59 to beat the 24.05 run by Justin Starks of the Cornell Track & Field Club by almost half a second. Similarly, Allison Koch of Camden doubled her victory count with a 28.03 that beat Annie Geiger of the Cornell Running Club’s 29.63.
Coming back in the 1 mile race, which he had never run before, Leon Atkins went out way too fast, like most novice milers, but then settled down and led the rest of the race and outkicking Clayton Wolfe of Owego Free Academy in the final lap to win in 4:37 over Wolfe’s 4:38. Elizabeth Lucason of Camden won the women’s race commandingly, with a 5:14, a full 10 seconds faster than her win in the January meet’s mile. Faithe Ketchum of Team PREFO was second in 5:36.
In the final event of the day, the 4x400m relay, Leon Atkins teamed with Clayton Wolfe and Vince Duvall of Owego Free Academy, and sprinter Alex Tompkins to win the relay in 3:48.5. Although impressive, that time remains only the second-fastest 4x400m of the year, behind Corning-Painted Post’s astonishing 3:39.6 in the February meet.
As always, dedicated work by a team of volunteers was essential in helping this meet run smoothly. Tonya Engst and David Keifer handled registration, with Mickie Jauquet and Bob Talda entering day-of-meet registrants and then wrangling all the heats as clerks of course. Alex Colvin reprised his role from January as head timer, Tom Rishel used our new electronic starting pistol as the starter, and David Rossiter counted laps and did backup timing along with Nancy Kleinrock. Steve Shaum managed the finish line with aplomb, Scott Wehrwein did a fantastic job of entering results with help from David Keifer and Jesse Koennecke. Special thanks to Mike Stewart for help setting up, Bryce Derick and Gavin Derick for helping out with timing and keeping finishers in order, and Don Tompkins for timing the 60m.
Thanks for a great indoor season, and we’ll see you outdoors on June 20th!