New Hampshire action: Just as the high-school scene heats up, an amazing collegiate season nears its denouement
If you've never broken two minutes before, you might as well run 1:52 just to say you were there
I’ve been ignoring the New Hampshire high-school season because, every year until at least late April, there is usually nothing interesting to report. The few invitationals held before this weekend were inflicted with reliably spotty weather, leaving the statewide performance lists comparatively meager heading into yesterday’s Black Bear Invitational in Northwood, hosted by Coe-Brown Academy.
Two events that blew up nicely were the boys’ 3,200 meters, held at the beginning of the meet as is always done at the Black Bear Invite, and the boys’ 800 meters. These events are viewable 15:50 and 3:58:15 respectively into the video below. (Yeah, the New Hampshire Track and Field dot com crew works long and unpaid, but obviously enjoyable as well as entertaining, hours.)
Aidan Cox of Coe-Brown was the most anticipated runner in the 3,200-meter field, as he was trying to break nine minutes for the first time. This is feat only two New Hampshire boys have ever managed, both in out-of-state races. Cox carried a best of 9:00.75 from two springs ago into the race, but his 8:16.65 3,000 meters over the winter—when he place fifth in the 5,000 meters at the New Balance Indoor Nationals in 14:21.98—converts to 8:53.29 for 3,200 meters.
Cox promised to have either a pacer or a shadow in the form of Tamrat Gavenas, a sophomore at Phillips Andover Academy in Massachusetts. New Hampshire public-school distance kids have been buoyed over the past decade or so by the increasing presence of kids from preparatory schools (aren’t they all?) in invitationals like these, notably Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire.
Gavenas brought indoor times of 8:26.92 for 3,000 meters and 9:10.45 for two miles to the day, the former worth around 9:04 for 3,200 meters. Also sure to mix it up with the leaders was Gilford’s Patrick Gandini, whose 9:16.72 at least spring’s New England Championships earned him sixth place.
As you either saw while watching the video or are happy to be told in words without that experience, Gavenas gave it all he had and almost looked like he would steal the race with 300 meters to go, but Cox held him off, with his 9:02.75 the fastest time—I think—ever recorded on a rubberized surface New Hampshire. (“New Hampshire soil” is misleading, as most of that soil consists of pasture or plowed cornfields, and no one could run even ten minutes for two miles across any selected patch of it.)
The boys’ 800 meters was a hair-biting, nail-pulling thrill-fest. The opening lap in around 54-flat by Oliver Brandes of Phillips Exeter, who carried 1:55.00 creds into the meet, should have proven lethal or at least noxious to both Brandes and Coe-Brown’s Gavin Demas, who was right on Brandes’ heels. Demas’ best heading into the race was 2:00.58 from last spring, although his 1:22.74 600 meters indoors over the winter along with momentum he’d gathered in the sprint events this spring suggested a 1:55 might be in the offing.
Demas is now the fourth-fastest New Hampshire high-school runner of all time. Absent from Milesplit’s list, and from most of the Internet, is the 1:52.4 for 880 yards run by Keene’s Gerry Pregent in 1968. That time converts to 1:51.7 for 800 meters (not factoring in the hand-time-to-FAT conversion of 0.14 seconds) and is the record Russell Brown broke in 2003.
Complete results of the meet are here.
Meanwhile, my nephew Hayden is at his conference championship today, aiming to run 1:57.5 or faster and qualify for next weekend’s Division III New England Regional Championships next weekend in Springfield, Mass.
The running events at the Great Northern Athletic Conference Championships start at noon Eastern Time at St. Joseph’s College of Maine, so Hayden will probably run at around 2:30 p.m. (Despite very few people actually living in the Pine Tree State, St. Joseph of Maine is unrelated to Tom of Maine, whose work focuses on environmentally friendly personal-care products.) The weather is looking iffy, but Hayden won’t notice if the track is under several inches of water, such is his focus at the moment.
Live results will appear here, and a silent video stream should appear here.