Lincoln-Sudbury girls share title
For Lincoln-Sudbury track coach Mel Gonsalves, it was elation, then disbelief, followed by acceptance.
After his girls' 4 x 400-relay team won in a meet-record-breaking 4 minutes 2.26 seconds, it appeared the Warriors had come from 9 points down to nip Newton South and Acton-Boxboro for the Division 1 indoor track title yesterday at the Reggie Lewis Track and Athletic Center.
But New Bedford protested the disqualification of its 4 x 200 team and the DQ was revoked. With that, Lincoln-Sudbury's 1-point victory became a 46-46 tie with Acton-Boxboro. Newton South finished third with 44 points.
Gonsalves pleaded with officials, but he had no choice except to "be a sport about it."
"I just want to make sure things are done fair and square," he said. "I guess it would've been a little different at the end, though, if we didn't get that point. We would have still been going for it but we'd be cheering for a tie. It's different. The mentality is different because you get the troops ready, they go and put a 10-spot on the table, and then at the end of the day, we find out that it's not enough.
"It's disappointing. But we'll find a way to still be happy about what we got accomplished today."
Meanwhile, Acton-Boxboro cocoach Ryan Steege was in a different mood as his team notched its second straight Division 1 title.
"The issue didn't involve us," he said. "We hate to watch the scoreboard, because as a team, we don't like to count points. The fact that it's up there drives me crazy because we don't want to know, and knowing that, and then having to drop, and then having it questioned . . . our girls knew that we don't count points and we don't know, so they just waited until everything was done. We're proud to be state champions two years in a row."
On the boys' side, it was a clear-cut case. Lexington, led by a quartet of All-Staters in seniors Darius Walker, Meikle Paschal, Bryan Longo, and Alex Lach, took the big prize with 52 points, scoring a 9-point victory over Brockton. St. John's Prep took third with 40 points, and Xaverian (31) and Brookline (26) rounded out the top five.
The Lexington foursome notched a meet record in the 4 x 400 relay in 3:24.67, beating Brockton's six-year-old mark. They were also individual forces. Walker's dash in the 55 meters (6.41 seconds) rewrote the record books, and Paschal took the high jump (6 feet 5 inches) and the 300-meter dash (35.13). Combined with third-place efforts from Longo in the 1,000 meters (2:29.10) and Lach in the 600 meters (1:23.63), the gang of four collected all the points for the Minutemen.
"Four kids scored 52 points," said Lexington coach William Babcock. "You don't see that happen too often, winning [Division 1] with only four scorers. I mean, they've carried us the whole year through dual-meet season, invitational meets, and now today. "
Several other meet records were set: New Bedford's Lauren Barber took the 55 hurdles (8.46); Medford's Arantxa King snapped her own record in the long jump (19-6 1/2); the Newton North girls were untouchable in the 4 x 800 (9:32.84); and Xaverian's Mark Amirault won the 1,000 in 2:27.24, the third-fastest high school time in the country.
