Photo: Belmont’s girls relay team in action.
In the best combined day in recent memory, the Belmont High School Boys’ and Girls’ Spring Track teams powered their way to top-ten finishes in the East Division 3 championships held Wednesday, June 3 in Durfee, Mass.
Led by a pair of second-place finishes by sophomore Julia Cella in the 100 (12.73 seconds) and 200 meter (26.36) sprints, Belmont piled up 46.5 points over the day, good for a solid sixth place.
The boys collected 33 points to place 9th, just three points from 7th place.
Belmont’s girls was the only team with two runners in both sprint finals as fellow sophomore Marley Williams joined Cella in the dashes.
After taking seventh in the 100, Williams finished second to the eventual winner, Tatum Pecci of Tewksbury, in the preliminary heats of the 200 meters, making her a favorite in the finals.
But Williams began feeling under the weather and scratched from the final, said Belmont Head Coach Melissa Glotzbecker, whose team won the Middlesex League regular season title and the League meet.
Belmont’s other multi-event point scorer was freshman standout Anoush Krafian, who finished third in the 100-meter hurdles, tied for seventh in the high jump and 11th in the long jump. She was also on the 4×100-meter relay that came in fourth.
Junior Samantha Kelts was one of three athletes who broke the existing point record for the pentathlon to finish the multi-event competition in third. Also capturing a third place medal was junior Meggie MacAulay in the 400 meters.
Sophomore Claudia Tenner led three Marauders in the 400-meter hurdles, coming in 7th followed by senior Kayla Magno and sophomore Guilia Rufo.
In the field events, junior Katrina Rokosz threw the javelin just under 111 feet for 7th place.
Leading the boys was senior captain Ari Silverfine, who broke two minutes to finish fourth in the 800 meters, while anchoring the 4×800 relay that raced stride for stride against Pembroke which eked out the victory over the Marauders by less than a second.
Silverfine’s fellow senior Owen Madden took third in the 400 hurdles while junior Luke Peterson used his long frame to finish fifth in the long jump, and sixth in the triple jump.
The final meet for both girls and boys is the All-State meet taking place on Saturday, June 6, at Fitchburg State College in Fitchburg.
From the girls team, Cella will be running in the 100 and 200 meters, Krafian in the 100 hurdles and high jump, MacAulay the 400, in addition to the 4×100 relay with Cella, Krafian, MacAulay and Williams with Naria Sealy as alternative.
Silverfine will run the 800 and Madden the 400 hurdles with the 4×800 and 4×400 relay teams taking part.