All-State boys track: Thyne caps senior season with 400 hurdles personal record

NORWELL — Gabe Thyne’s strength in the 400 hurdles all season has been his ability to gut out a strong finish off a fast pace.

The Concord-Carlisle senior was at it again Saturday at the All-State Track & Field Championships, this time against the fastest field he’s ever been up against.

Thyne had been running over-distance repeats at race pace in his workouts and that added strength propelled him to a personal best and decisive win in 54.69 seconds. Jay Sharma of Newton North leaned at the tape for second in 55.65 and Sean McKay of Hingham clinched third with a 55.99.

Thyne was ecstatic with his win on the Norwell High track.

“It was the best race of the year,” said Thyne, who will compete for the University of Rochester. “I focused on getting out hard and holding on. I felt invincible. The adrenaline just took over.”

This spring marked the first season Thyne has ever run the 400 hurdles after competing in the 110 hurdles and 400.

“I used to do the 110 hurdles and then I ran a 4×400 and really liked it,” Thyne said.

Acton-Boxboro’s immense talent, Jacob Kao, came away with a gold medal in the 200 (21.43) and silver in the 100 (10.80) behind South Hadley’s Jonas Clarke (10.67).

“Not my best performance, but it is what it is,” said Kao of his second place in the 100. “It was a tough heat. It was a little bittersweet but it was great to be out here with my boys. (The 200) felt alright. It wasn’t a PR, but it’s good to be healthy and I ran against a bunch of fast guys. I got a decent start but I kind of strained a little bit over the last 100 just because I wanted to break 21 so bad.”

Kao paced the Acton-Boxboro squad to the team win with 47 points. Stoughton and St. John’s Prep tied for second with 37 points. The Colonials were a strong second in the 4×100 as Samuel Pan, Sam Ahern, Tristan Wu and Zoraiz Saad combined for a 43.31 and also took third in the 4×400 in 3:24.17.

Newton North’s Max Klein dominated the shot put once again as he got off a winning heave of 61-6 1/4. Jake Wall of Mansfield leaped 23-7 1/2 to easily capture the long jump and Alexander Dacruz’s 44-11 1/4 in the triple jump gave the Greater New Bedford senior the top step on the podium. Stoughton’s Elisha Teneus-Claude took the high jump with a stellar leap of 6-8. The lone meet record came in the discus, where Joseph Duggan launched a toss of 180-5 for the win. That mark erased the 2009 record of 178-0 set by Andrew Tallman of B.C. High.

Lawrence’s Jordany Volquez was as engaged as anyone in the meet as he ran flawlessly in his preliminary 110 hurdle heat, which he took in 14.20. Volquez went into the final with the fastest time and it proved to be more of the same Saturday on the way to a decisive 14.10 victory. Second went to Stoughton’s Jordan Emile in 14.59 and Finn Lawson of Framingham clinched third in 14.60.

“I knew I just had to stay calm, run my race and do what I do,” said Volquez. “It paid off. I got a way better start than last week and the focus all this week was getting out of the blocks fast.”

Jarrett Young of St. John’s Prep hooked up with Newton South’s Justin Levy for a wicked duel over the final straightaway of the 400. The finish couldn’t have been much closer as Young broke the tape in 48.90 to edge Levy’s 48.91.

“I’ve never had anyone come up on me like that,” said Young, who will bring his talents to the University of Rhode Island. “I got out fast and thought I had the race under control. That kid just came out of nowhere.”

Young wasn’t sitting comfortably on the fact that he was the top seed.

“I was the one seed so I thought I had a good chance, but anything can happen,” he said. “And that was a really strong field.”

The opening day of the meet on Thursday, which featured the middle distance events, didn’t disappoint. Reed Cherry of Littleton led a whopping 18 runners under 2 minutes in the 800 with a sterling time of 1:53.04 in his specialty. Nashoba’s Freddy Collins put the hammer down in the mile as he blazed his way to a 4:16.38 win and St. John’s Nathan Lopez edged out David Donahue of Wellesley with a blistering 9:06.14 decision in the 2-mile. Donahue was two steps back in 9:06.30 as eight runners in the stacked field dipped under 9:20.

The pole vault saw Frontier’s Jack Vecellio clear 14-6 to edge out the 14-0 turned in by Dover-Sherborn’s Sawyer Garrett. Liam Bourassa of Ayer-Shirley won the javelin by 10 feet with a 187-5 heave and Izaiah Strum of Lowell was victorious in the pentathlon.

from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/3gYCqCx