By Phil Murphy
DigitalSports.com
** Video player below the story is complete. Check back for complete results, too. **
BLOG: February 7, 2008
4:44 p.m. – Arrive. Kiss clock.
4:47 p.m. – Crack open first Coke Zero. Lesson learned.
4:48 p.m. – Three field events start simultaneously. Recognize it is going to be a long night.
4:49 p.m. – Doug Howell (Marshall) clears 5-feet, 4-inches in high jump for my first successful highlight of the day. He would finish tied for 10thin the Liberty District, though, as he was unable to improve on that attempt.
4:51 p.m. – Robinson senior J.J. Sindhusake triple jumps 37-feet, 4.5-inches on his second attempt. I try to picture myself jumping nearly 40 feet in three bounds.
4:54 p.m. – Eleven of the 16 jumpers advance to 5-6. The boys’ high jumpers are raising the bar.
4:55 p.m. – I delight in my pun.
4:57 p.m. – Getting a little overwhelmed with three overlapping events with no definite starts. Check schedule to find soonest break.
4:58 p.m. – Realize ability to get home by 10 p.m. is impossible … and so is a trip to Subway before closing.
5 p.m. – Decide to petition Subway to stay open until 11 p.m. on weekdays.
5:04 p.m. – Wesley Sun (Chantilly) triple jumps 38-7, the longest of the young meet. That proved to be his best effort. He finished in eighth place.
5:09 p.m. – Five-feet, 6-inches is proving a little challenging for the high jumpers. No one has cleared it yet.
5:10 p.m. – Lance Cheng (Marshall) shuts me up.
5:15 p.m. – The next six jumpers in succession clear 5′ 6.” Derp.
5:17 p.m. – Robert Herrity (Chantilly) is the first triple jumper to go past 40 feet. Flight 2 in the Concorde is stacked.
5:19 p.m. – Yet to have touched the sandwich tray.
5:20 p.m. – Everyone and their mom is clearing the 40-feet plateau in the triple jump. David Skahn (Westfield) and Russell Green (Herndon) soar to 42 feet even.
5:31 p.m. – The 5-10 level at the boys high jump has claimed all but Kevin Hegel (McLean) and Michael Harrell (South Lakes). Only Langley teammates Patrick Pembroke and Chris Pierce could be added to the list of jumpers to clear 5-8.
5:34 p.m. – Girls’ 55-meter hurdles is delayed eight minutes due to a technical problem with the finish-line software.
5:35 p.m. – Drama ensues as Skahn, tied for second in triple jump at the time, is waiting for the boys’ 55-meter hurdle to begin. He is away from the triple-jump runway and is the next jumper. Skahn only has 10 minutes to return before his attempt is forfeited.
5:37 p.m. – Both Hegel and Harrell soar over 6-feet. Looking at the bar, I struggle to contemplate being able to do that.
5:38 p.m. – Hypothetically determine which body parts I’d trade for that ability. Pinkie finger, yes. Big toe, no. Left arm, tough call.
5:40 p.m. – Skahn makes his triumphant return with only two minutes to spare.
5:41 p.m. – He jumps 42-4.5. That holds up to be the second-best Concorde effort of the afternoon.
5:42 p.m. – The finish-line software is repaired.
5:44 p.m. – Ioana Christei (Jefferson) wins the Liberty girls’ 55-meter hurdles in 9.20 seconds. The cut for the automatic qualification for the Northern Region is 9.32. It’s 8.70 for an automatic bid to the state championships.
5:46 p.m. – Westfield senior Haley Boone torches the competition in the Concorde girls’ 55-hurdles at 9.09 seconds. Only two runners, teammates Mary Boyles and Rachel Dillon, where within one second of Boone. She ran a 9.01 in prelims.
5:49 p.m. – South Lakes junior Vincent Brown scorches the track, running the 55-meter hurdles in 7.67, qualifying him automatically for states (7.88). Keeven Kuate Konga (McLean) also earns a state bid, finishing at 7.83 seconds. The meet record is 7.63 seconds, held by Brandon Royster (Fairfax).
5:50 p.m. – Michael Harrell clears 6-2 on the high jump to win the Liberty District. I miss it waiting for the Concorde boys’ 55-hurdles to start.
5:53 p.m. – In said 55-hurdle, all six runners finish within 0.53 seconds of one another. Buggsy Urrutia (Chantilly) takes first at 8.12 seconds.
5:55 p.m. – Upset in Liberty girls’ 55-meter dash. Sophomore Brittany Johnson (Marshall), having the fourth-best qualifying time of the six runners, wins at 7.49 seconds, 0.34 faster than her semi-final speed.
5:56 p.m. – Too busy to think about food.
5:57 p.m. – Horrible camera work on my part. Too hungry to film. Robinson sophomore Audrey Barry wins — trust me — at 7.42 seconds, 0.01 off of an automatic state bid. Herndon places 3, 4, 5.
6 p.m. – No doubt the closest sprint of the day in the boys’ 55-meter. South Lakes sweeps the top three, as Brown’s 6.71 edges Nick Vaughan by one one-hundredth of a second.
6:02 p.m. – Westfield junior Matthew Davis drops 0.14 seconds off of his prelim time to win the Concorde boys’ 55 at 6.66. Superstition kicks in. Favorite David Ladd (Fairfax) finishes third.
6:05 p.m – Sprints are over. It may be sandwich time.
6:08 p.m. – Harrell fails to clear 6-3. The Liberty District record is 6-5, held by McLean’s Doug Zimmer, now competing at William & Mary.
6:10 p.m. – Near disaster on the runway of the boys triple jump. The judge of the girls event does not see Ryan Aitken (Herndon) bounding down the ramp and crosses into his path after Aitken had made the first jump. Aitken narrowly avoids the
collision, but has to return and re-group for another attempt.
6:14 p.m. – The Woodson girls’ 4×200-meter team drops four seconds from their prelim time and establish a new district record at 1:48.71, breaking the mark Madison set exactly one year ago.
6:17 p.m. – Kareem Ebanks of Westfield gives DigitalSports some love. Instant ego boost.
6:18 p.m. – Ego crashes violently to earth as I trip over the metal guard rail lining the track. Play it off, no one saw that.
6:20 p.m. – Begin second page of notes. Not cutting any corners for district track.
6:21 p.m. – A bad exchange costs Marshall in Section 1 of the Liberty boys’ 4×2.
6:23 p.m. – Langley sets a district record in the boys 4×2 at 1:34.46, one-tenth of a second faster than the mark Fairfax set in 2005. It edges a speedy South Lakes squad by exactly two-tenths of a second to claim victory.
6:25 p.m. – Give into temptation. Devour sandwich No. 1. Certainly more to follow.
6:36 p.m. – The Robinson girls cruise to a win in the Concorde 4×200-meter relay in 1:47.70. Slower than their seed time, but still enough to win by nearly a three-second margin.
6:38 p.m. – Slight confusion as the noise makes communication difficult. The distance of Langley senior Owen Masters’ second attempt is momentarily in question, but ultimately the scorers’ impressions agreed with mine. Superhero is added to my resume.
6:40 p.m. – Inhale a bag of Cheetos. One falls to the track.
6:40.03 p.m. – Pick it up just in time. Indulge.
6:47 p.m. – Realize what an idiotic idea a minute-by-minute account of a co-district meet is.
6:49 p.m. – Try to remember why short shorts went out of style.
7:09 p.m. – South Lakes senior Kevin Hickey’s first preliminary attempt in the triple jump is not recorded because the pit was never raked free of footprints.
7:12 p.m. – Jefferson senior Brian Landry sets a meet record in the 1,600-meter race, dropping his seed time by nearly four seconds. He ran a 4:27.68 to beat teammate Evan Heflin and a trio of Woodson seniors. No underclassmen finished in the top 10.
7:16 p.m. – Someone walks by me with swishie pants.
7:17 p.m. – Recall the definition of “onomatopoeia.”
7:25 p.m. – The Liberty boys triple jump is heating up as Kevin Hegel (McLean) just dropped a 41-8 bomb on the competition.
7:32 p.m. – The top two seeds – Hegel and Jefferson senior Raghav Mattay – trade leaps of 41-3 and 41-4. respectively. Mattay says he’s doing this on one good leg. Scary.
7:33 p.m. – Skahn, already named the winner of the high jump, clears 6-1 on his second attempt. He would not go any higher at this meet, but was still the run-away champion.
7:37 p.m. – Sandwiches two through four and another Coke Zero. I mix it up and go with one each of roast beef, ham and turkey.
7:44 p.m. – Oakton senior and DigitalSports Fall Runner of the Year Joe LoRusso blazes through the 1.000-meter race in 2:35.82. As quick as he was, his seed time was three seconds faster.
7:45 p.m. – Hickey is M.I.A. after his 4×2 run for his Seahawks. He has qualified for the triple jump finals and has not checked in.
7:49 p.m. – Hickey arrives, but decides to forego his first of three attempts in an effort to regain enough energy to compete.
7:52 p.m. – Determine the battery on the camera isn’t going to last through the entire meet. Drop class-action suit against Subway for closing early … for now.
7:58 p.m. – Hickey is visibly gassed. His jumps are coming up a foot shorter than usual, a difficult obstacle to overcome in a field as strong as this.
8 p.m. – Hegel launches himself 42-1.75. Enough said.
8:07 p.m. – As an encore he goes for 42-2.
8:08 p.m. – Mattay counters with 41-4.75, his second best jump of the day, and finishes second. Expect this shootout to carry over to the Northern Region in meet in two weeks.
8:11 p.m. – Oscar Olazo Nostades (Marshall) wins boys 1,000-meter in 2:37.61. The top four runners all boast regional-qualifying times.
8:13 p.m. – Last battery dies, effectively ending my night.
8:16 p.m. – Find nice statistics gentlemen from Jefferson who promise to send results later tonight.
8:21 p.m. – Exit restroom. Three sodas in three hours will bite you one way or another.
Email: pmurphy@digitalsports.com
Processing your request, Please wait....
