Fast day on the track at Jim Kelly Invitational
HORSHAM >> Sunshine, and Abington’s 4×800-meter relay, broke through nicely on Saturday.
“We wanted it bad, just to show our mark, show what we can do early in the season,” said the Ghosts’ anchor man, Cameron Mitchell. “We really just wanted to show off and put a good mark down for the Penn Relays.”
Josh Coleman, Orion Frazier, Amir Cubbage and Mitchell raced to victory in the 4×8, part of a tremendous showing by locals at the Third Annual Jim Kelly Invitational Saturday afternoon at Hatboro-Horsham High School.
The Central Bucks West girls and their stable of strong 800 runners ran away to a first-place finish in the team standings, while on the boys side, Pennridge’s hard-charging 4×400 relay clocked a 3:24.09 to win the final event on the track, propelling the Rams to first in the team standings.
The Abington boys had plenty of kick in the 4×8, finishing over 10 seconds ahead of their closest competition.
“Our three seniors (on the 4×8) — Josh, Ryan and myself, we’ve been running together since freshmen year,” Mitchell said, “and we’ve been training with Amir, getting him to run faster and he’s improving a lot. So we wanna keep it up, keep up the work.”
Abington crossed with a winning time of 8 minutes, 8.98 seconds, topping 15 other foursomes in the field.
Coleman, Frazier and Cubbage worked the Ghosts into the lead and Mitchell hammered it home.
“A few of our guys are coming off injury so we’re working through that so we can be a hundred percent coming up on the Penn Relays,” Mitchell said with a smile.
Bucks Run Wild
The Central Bucks West 4×8 was also up to speed, topping a deep field that included rivals North Penn, CB East and Upper Dublin. A West foursome of Piper Wilson, Emmi Simon, Vanessa Barrow and Darby Roth raced to a victory in 9:28.42.
“I felt good. It’s nice to be outside again,” said a happy Roth.
The Bucks, who would also grab three of the top four spots in the open 8, took first in the 4×8 relay by 21 seconds.
“Coach (Kiki Bell) tells us to do a 400 on the first lap and then treat it like four 100’s on the second,” Roth said.
“So I started kicking at the third one and I felt pretty good.”
The Bucks foursome has been together only this season but excelled indoors.
Said Roth: “Our goal for the year is definitely to make it to states, and just keep getting our time down.”
There Goes Lenahan
Crossing the finish line to cheers of “Lenny,” host Hatboro-Horsham’s Matt Lenahan won one of the best races of the day, holding off a surging Alex Cluff of Wilson by one one-hundredths of a second in the 400-meter hurdles.
“Amazing. I wanna go (to the Penn Relays) so bad,” Lenahan said of notching a qualifying time. “Deep down, I knew I could do it, but I didn’t think it was gonna be that close with (Cluff). He’s a good runner.”
Lenahan won the race in 55.41 seconds, with Cluff in second with a 55.42.
Asked if he likes the start he is off to this season, Lenahan said: “I do now. I really do.”
Adding to Her Repertoire
Upper Dublin’s Madison Langley-Walker showed plenty of stamina and beat all comers in the challenging 400 hurdles.
“It’s tough. It’s pretty tough,” she said smiling. “With the 300 hurdles, you don’t have that last 100 so you’ve got to be able to push through and pick it up a little bit. I’ll see what I ran today and work on some things for Penn Relays.”
The standout sprinter, hurdler and jumper crossed with a winning time of 1:04.87, finishing first comfortably by almost three seconds. Langley-Walker pushed herself hard down the final stretch.
“It’s painful, like running the 800. But it’s a matter of using your arms and lifting to stay strong. And not breaking form,” she said of the event.
“I felt good. I could have used a little bit of fine-tuning things, like staying low to the hurdle and picking it up with a little bit more speed but I felt like this race was good for today.”
Making a Statement
The Pennridge boys amassed 61 team points for the top spot, powered by Matt Eissler’s win in the 1,600 and Vincent Polignano’s victory in the high jump.
The North Penn girls kept the heat on, rising to second in the team standings, led by the winning distance medley relay foursome that crossed in 12:43.42.
