The 75th New England Interscholastic Outdoor Track and Field Championships are today in New Britain, Connecticut, returning to the slate after a two-year absence.
Unlike the cross-country version of the “New Englands,” from which Massachusetts has been absent for over fifty years, this meet includes athletes from all six states in the region, with six individuals and relay teams from each state qualifying for the meet in each event. This means, in theory, that thirty-six boys and girls will compete in every track and field event. But several buses always get lost on the way to Connecticut from places like northern Maine and Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom, so the total in each event today will probably be more like thirty-two to thirty-three inclusive.
Performance lists are here, live results will appear here, and you can check out the meet records here. The free livestream below starts at 10:30 a.m.
Last week’s New Hampshire Meet of Champions (results; replay) surprised me in that multiple distance runners treated the day like it was a state-championship or otherwise scored meet rather than a New Englands qualifier. If you’re a distance runner at the MoC or its equivalent in the other five participating states, you want fast paces in your event(s) so you can be as highly seeded as possible at the New Englands, at which athletes are seeded according to their performances from the weekend before (which isn’t necessarily their personal or season best). And doubling as a distance runner at the MoC is, on the surface, almost pointless unless you plan to do the same at the New Englands, which only unusually talented competitors typically attempt.
On the other hand, some people just like racing familiar in-state rivals, especially if it’s probably the last chance they’ll ever get to square off at the high-school, or any, level. No shame in that.
Concord’s Sam Hilts, who I thought had a shot at the school record in the 1,600 meters (4:15.61) this spring, was one of last weekend’s doublers, and he had a sterling day, taking second in the 1,600 meters to Hanover’s Pierce Seigne (4:17.40 to 4:18.29) and returning to win the 3,200 meters (9:15.60). Given that Hilts closed that 4:18.29 in 56.40—giving up over half a second to Seigne anyway—he is certainly capable of sub-4:15. But the Concord High record in the 3,200 meters is 9:11.62 (set by future Olympian Guor Majak in 2004 at the tender age of twenty), and Hilts split 4:41.86- 4:33.74 in that 9:15.60, closing in 64.6 despite having the race well in hand with a lap to go. He’s running only the 3,200 meters today, and if he starts easing incrementally into the red with five laps to go, I think he can run 9:07.
Hilts’s Concord teammate and fellow UNH-bound senior John Murphy is, as NewHampshireTrackandField.com announcer Jim MacKenzie is fond of saying, no joke either. Murphy, who will be at least 6’ 11” and 137 pounds by the end of the day, took third in the 1,600 meters at the MoC in 4:20.82 with a final 400 meters of 59.26. If he winds up in the faster of the two heats—and right now, it’s unclear whether that will happen—I think he has a sub-4:15 in him, too. (Seigne, meanwhile, can run 4:09.) Murphy has had issues with pacing in the two years I’ve been watching him, but he has absolutely zero problems when it comes to heart. When a talented and lanky kid like that finds the right distribution of effort in the right race, the results can be transformative and turn an already solid prep runner into a memorable one.
Also, contradicting what I just said or at least my graying concept of tradition, Murphy is doubling today, carrying in a 1:57.68 800 meters from his fourth-place effort at the MoC.
Zachary Hooper is another Concord senior who slowly worked his way toward the top of the in-state ranks, recording a 9:33 for eight laps this spring. Hooper missed qualifying for the New Englands last Saturday by two places, but he will also run for the UNH Wildcats starting this fall. There, the incoming CHS Class of 2022 trio will join, by my count, four other former Crimson Tide runners. The University of New Hampshire will thus, again in theory, be able to field a complete scoring team using runners from a single high school, including displacers. They probably won’t execute that move unless they need to, but that can’t be a common scenario at a state university, or anywhere, in any sport. (And no, Concord isn’t on the UNH campus; the town of Durham is.)
I ran at the New Englands in 1987 and 1988, both times on a since-destroyed oversized eyesore allegedly owned and managed by Boston College, then overseen directly by the Holy See. I managed to get 12th in the 3,200 meters out of the hangover heat as senior in a shitty time (9:43), most likely because it was in the 90s, I got no splits, and I really didn’t care about the outcome or God until I started passing people late in the race; one these kids smelled like he hadn’t showered in weeks, and his Pig Pen-like funk, almost visible in the shimmering heat, galvanized me to accelerate or at least not slow down as much as the other wilting skinnies did. In retrospect, maybe the stench was my own, although it did seem to fade as the end of the race drew nearer.
Anyway, I remember being happy enough with the end of my high-school “career,” but that was the third straight weekend I had raced when the temperature was in the 90s, and I recall wishing at that time that I were fast enough to be an 800-meter runner so that I could do my thing week after week without racking up a farmer’s tan.
