Girls Track Team: Section 1 Class C Champions

by Dayton Flannery

Beginning on Wednesday, the Bronxville Girls’ Varsity Track and Field team competed in the Section I Class C championships. In this championship meet, the girls were contending against several teams including Woodlands, Dobbs Ferry, Valhalla, and Pawling The girls finished the day on top even before the final three events (steeple chase, javelin, and hammer throw) were completed, May 22.

The meet started with the 100m dash preliminary round but, unfortunately, the girls failed to place in the top six during the finals. This earned them a total of zero points. Wasting no time, Rachel Kim took third in the girls 100m hurdles. This was followed by key fourth and fifth place finishes by Maggie Goff and Gabby Wall respectively in the 200m. In the 400m run, Henrietta Miers, Olivia Bruton, and Charlotte White placed second, third, and fifth, in a very close race. Charlotte White tied for fifth with a time of 62.2 and senior Olivia Bruton finished only .1 seconds before her.

Contributing to the team’s success once more was junior Rachel Kim who took first in the 400m hurdles. Finishing only four seconds behind her was eighth grader Meredith Rizzo in third place. After the 400m hurdles was the 800m run. It was in this event that the Bronxville girls proved their strength as a team. Placing first through fourth, the girls scored 28 out of a possible 31 points. Even more impressive was the fact that Caitlin Hudson, Henrietta Miers, Olivia Bruton, and Tori Flannery all finished with times within one second of each other’s. The fifth place finisher came in two seconds later only to realize none of these Bronxville girls had run even close to best times.

Proving their team strength again were seniors Tori Flannery, Caitlin Hudson, and a rather extraordinary seventh grader named Mary Cain who took the first three places in the 1500m run. This time all of the girls finished at least nine seconds in front of the fourth place finisher. Tori Flannery won the race in 4:48.4 followed by Hudson in 4:53.5 and Mary Cain in 4:54.6.

Continuing to astonish the spectators gathered at the Bronxville track was the fleet of middle schoolers stealing places 3-6 in the 3000m. Charlotte Cooley, Amelia Phillips, Argentina Chrappa, and Emilie Hoffer all finished within 40 seconds of each other in this long distance race.

Other notable competitions included the shot put where Bronxville’s seventh grader Claire Sargent took third. Sargent placed behind Woodland’s star thrower Lexia Robinson. Leigh Dannhuaser won the high jump, jumping 5 inches higher than the second place finisher. Bronxville also won two out of the three relays including the 4x800m relay and the 4x400m. The 4x400m relay was especially fun to watch considering junior Henrietta Miers ran down the first place team Woodlands, who had perhaps 20 or 30 meters on the girls.

On Friday the girls also had three girls place in the top five in the 2000m Steeple Chase which was held at Byram Hills High School. Though they had already won the championship on Wednesday, the girls showed no mercy and competed today just to top off an excellent meet.