Photo: Anoush Krafian
Belmont High School Senior Anoush Krafian finished her Massachusetts High School track career in style by repeating as champion in the 100 meters hurdles, coming within one-one hundredth of a second of the state record as she left a talented field in her wake at the MIAA All-State Outdoor Track and Field Meet held at Fitchburg State University on Saturday, June 2.
The Dartmouth-bound Krafian flew over the 10 33-inch barriers in 14.26 seconds, a personal best and a Belmont High School record to win by more than half-a-second over runner-up Saige Tudisco of Pentucket Regional in 14.80. Krafian’s time was .01 of a second back of the state record of 14.25 set in 2011 by Brockton’s Vanessa Clerveaux who currently runs for Haiti internationally.
Earlier in the meet, Krafian jumped to a fourth-place finish in the high jump with a 5-foot, 6-inch effort, which tied with two other athletes for the second highest attempt (Krafian took fourth on the number of misses she accumulated in the meet) behind Anna Jordahl-Henry of Wellesley who won scaling 5’8″.
On Thursday, Krafian came close to repeating as the state’s pentathlon champion – a title she won indoors in February – as she broke her own state outdoor record by nearly 150 points. But she was overtaken by sophomore Jada Johnson of Sharon who destroyed her own personal best by 300 points to win the five-event competition, 3,529 to 3,408.
With her first, second and fourth place showings, Krafian earned all of Belmont’s 23 points to place 6th out of 71 schools scoring in the meet.
On the boys’ side of the ledger, Belmont High Senior Calvin Perkins repeated last year’s All-State result placing second in a school record 48.16, this time to Phillips Magre of Somerville who dipped below the 48 second line in 47.98. Perkins took a half-second off last year’s race time to come close to the state record set by Boston College High’s Mike Greene 35 years ago.
Belmont’s 4X400 relay team of seniors Max Serrano-Wu, Mel Nagashima, Bryan Huang and junior Nicholas Picardi took 7th in finals in 3 minutes, 24.75 seconds.
Belmont’s Boys finished 25th with 10 points out of 77 teams scoring.