Photo: (from left) Anoush Krafian (16.1 seconds), Rachel Berets (16.8) and Sammy Kelts (17.2) sweep the 100m high hurdles in a duel meet with Lexington. 

Usually, a duel track meet between strong teams come down to the final two events; the 100 and 400 meter relays. 

That wasn’t necessary on Thursday, May 7, when the undefeated Lexington High School Girls’ Track squad visited unbeaten Belmont High School at Harris Field. When Belmont’s junior Meredith Hughes strode across the finish line to win the two-mile (12 minutes, 11.5 seconds), the Marauders piled up an insurmountable point lead so to clinch the historic victory over the Minutemen without having to pass the baton around the track.

The 70-66 victory was the first by Belmont over Lexington in nearly 15 years, and brings the 5-0 Marauders to within a whisper of winning the Middlesex League title, said Belmont Head Coach Melissa Glotzbecker, with a meet with Winchester remaining on the schedule. 

“Overall, all of our girls showed up, they were setting personal bests in a lot of different events. The came in with a positive attitude and ready to run hard and fight for the win,” said Glotzbecker. The victory outdoors comes just three months after Lexington crushed Belmont inside, 62-24. 

The meet was close with Lexington in the lead by four points, 29-25 (the first three finishers score in a meet with first receiving 5 points, second, 3 points, and third, 1 point) when Belmont made its move midway through the meet.

The comeback started with freshman standout Anoush Krafian breaking the school’s outdoor long-jump record by just over three inches with a leap of 17 feet, 5 1/2 inches. Earlier, Krafian just missed clearing 5 foot, 3 inches in the high jump, still winning with a height of 5’1″, with Sammy Kelts finishing second with a leap of 4’9″. 

In the triple jump, Kelts (33 feet, 8 inches) and Marley Williams (33 feet, 6 1/2 inches) out jumped Lexington’s Div. 1 standout senior Cathryn Pryor by 2 1/2 and 1 inch to take first and second and grab eight points to the Minuteman’s one. 

Finally, in the 100 meters hurdles, Belmont swept the top three places as Krafian (16.1 seconds), Rachel Berets (16.8) and Kelts (17.2) led the way to nine points to give Belmont a 47-34 lead. 

“Our hurdle group is hard working. They fight for every single last step that they can get. And you saw that at the finish line when [Kelts] went for the lean just so she could get that last [scoring] place,” said Glotzbecker

The hurdles have become a speciality for the Marauders as Claudia Tenner (69.3 seconds) and Kayla Magno (69.6) went one-two in the 400 meter hurdles, giving Belmont 17 out of a total of 18 points in the two events.

The Marauders protected the lead by placing either first or second in the remaining events. Williams won both in the 100 and 200 meter dashes with Megan Alper finishing third in the  200; Meghan MacAulay and Danielle Kelly finished second and third in the 4oo meters, and Julia Delhome gutted out a 2:32.1 800 meters to finish in second. After the Hughes ran the second mile by herself to the victory, Belmont had secured the win.

“We have a hard working group, they are unified as a team which is great,” said Glotzbecker.