BRAINTREE — The chilly, breezy conditions Saturday did little to thwart St. John’s Prep’s Nathan Lopez from pulling off a Herculian triple at the Div. 1 Relays.
The distance ace registered a 4:25 mile, 1:56 in the 800 and closed out his day with a personal best of 4:13 in his second mile of the afternoon. Lopez’s new personal best clinched the Eagles’ 4xMile win in 17:57.9 as St. John’s added a third outdoor relays title with 79 points to easily defeat runner-up Lexington with its 48 points.
“I felt good and decided to run the second mile,” said Lopez. “I wanted to get points for the team.”
The day was a good one for St. John’s Prep. “This is the meet,” said Eagles’ head coach Zack Lankow. “You can make a strong argument that this is the real state championship compared to the one on Memorial Day weekend. I’m not just saying that because we’ve done well here. You can get two or three kids and get third place, you can get second place at the Div. 1 state meet.”
The Eagles had the best high jumper of the day in Drew McStay, who cleared 6-4, to fuel a win in the event at 17-9. The same too with Tireni Asenuga, who triple-jumped 42-8, as he teamed with Aithan Bezanson and Andrew McMann for the win.
Newton North girls’ coach Mike Travers gave Colgate-bound co-captain Kiran George credit for pacing the Tigers with a tight win over Andover with 63.5 points. Andover was a close second with 54 points. George anchored the winning 4×100 team (49.43), the second-place 4×200 (1:46.50) and cleared 5-2 in the high jump.
“The day begins and ends with Kiran George,” said Travers. “She was involved in a first place and two second places. She is our best athlete, without a doubt.”
Travers said the meet is always a big one for the Tigers and a good benchmark.
“It’s the highlight of our season,” Travers said. “We always work for success in this meet and we like to include as many kids as possible, which we did today. We scored points where we expected to and we scored points where we didn’t expect to.”
The 4×800 record on the boys’ side took a hit as Brookline (8:00.17), St. John’s Prep (8:01.39) and Acton-Boxboro (8:02.04) all bettered the previous mark of 8:04.40 set by Brookline in 2007.
The Warriors had a solid lineup with the foursome of Altamo Aschkensay, Hunter Bailey, Cam Walter and Declan Mulligan. Bailey had the quickest split in 1:59.1 while Mulligan clocked a 1:59.4. “We didn’t know what the record was until after,” said Mulligan. “It’s pretty cool getting the record. We ran 7:54 indoors and right now we have a lot of work to do. It’ll be a few weeks before we’re in peak shape.”