UPPER DARBY — Alphonso Koukou was a little surprised at first when he started competing in track and field.
He expected that, as a shot putter, he wouldn’t interact much with the sprinters or the distance guys at Episcopal Academy. Yeah, they’d all compete in the same jerseys, but wasn’t it an individual sport, after all?
“It really amazed me,” Koukou was saying in the rain Saturday at Upper Darby. “When I came to EA, I really found out what a team is. Before, when I did track, it was, oh you have a 100-meter guy and he does his own thing. But I’m so close with guys that do the two-mile or the 100-meter dash, and I throw the shot put.”
He also throws the shot put very well … well enough to be the two-time champion at the Delco Track and Field Championships.
Koukou braved the damp conditions by throwing 54 feet, 11 inches. That was good not just for a win but a 1-2 result with teammate Calvin Szoradi, who tossed 50-9.
“It feels great because I know the work we put in,” said Koukou, an offensive lineman committed to Villanova. “It means so much to us.”
The team aspect pays off for EA, which scored 141 points to win its second straight team title. Ridley was the only one in touch at 109 points.
Abaas Hunter finished fourth in the 200 and stepped up to win the 400. He had finished second in the 100-meter dash last year as a freshman. Dawson French finished second in the 800 and won the 1,600, augmenting Wednesday’s title by Eli Engleman in the 3,200, in which French was third.
In addition to Koukou in the field, Jason Daum cleared 12-9 to win the pole vault. Joachim Johnson picked up another medal in the long jump in fourth to go with the triple jump win and third in the high jump. Szoradi was fourth in the discus, and Dylan Unruh tossed 153-3 to win the javelin.
Koukou is tight with distance runners like Engleman, despite their specialties being pretty far apart. That bond is behind the quest for a second straight triple crown – Delcos, Inter-Acs, and PAISAAs – that adorned last year’s celebratory shirts.
“We really work for that,” Koukou said. “We’ve preached that throughout the spring season. That means so much for us to work towards that.”
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A year ago, Joshua Dean finished fourth in the 200 meters at Delcos and didn’t compete in the 100.
As a junior, the Academy Park sprinter is much stronger all across the board. And the reward is two new gold medals.
Dean went 10.86 in the 100 to blow away the field. He used his finishing kick in the 200 to edge out Strath Haven’s AJ Glavicic by .02 in 21.74.
“I feel like the 100 is what I improved in the most,” Dean said. “Once you get the 100 time faster, all your other races become faster. I improved in the 100, and that made me improve in the 200.”
Dean, Glavicic and Cardinal O’Hara’s Logan Maloney were within a tenth of a second in the 200. AP also finished second in the 4 x 100, its 42.86 edged by O’Hara’s 42.66.
The Knights, who qualified for two finals at Penn Relays, are steadily growing in confidence. They could be contenders for states in the 4 x 100 and 4 x 400, especially if a few minor injuries relent.
“We’re trying to improve ourselves, rooting each other on to become a better team, become more connected,” Dean said. “I feel like that really helped in our ability to perform on the track.”
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NOTES >> Danny Schikel of Cardinal O’Hara won both hurdles. He won the 300 in 38.87, nearly a second over the field. In the 110, he went 14.80. … The 400 might have been the race of the day, Hunter surging late to win in 48.64, .01 ahead of Ridley’s Jesufifunmi Olugbenga. Both pushed late to nudge past James Fisher of Strath Haven, who led coming off the turn. It denied Olugbenga a third title, as his 22-3.50 won the long jump. … The 800 was a doozy, too, Jackson Kane of Ridley going 1:54.18 to edge French by .07. Kadin Salaria of Penncrest and Colin Reuther of Strath Haven were also within .26 seconds. … Strath Haven’s Gavin Schmidt entered the discus with the top seed by 36.5 feet. He won by just shy of 40 feet, throwing 179 even.
