By Douglas McCulloch
Hometown Weekly Staff
The Walpole High boys and girls track teams competed in the BSC championship meet on May 18 at Braintree High School. The boys placed fifth overall.
On the boys side, Richard Crowley came in second place in the 100m dash. In the 110m hurdles, Brandon Kilroy placed third with 16.34.
In the 400m hurdles, Jack Kennefick placed second with a time of 58.83, and Nick Ricci placed third in the 400m dash with a time of 50.32, beating a previous Walpole record.
The boys came in third in the 4x100 meter relays and fourth in the 4x400 meter relays. Nick Campobasso picked up fifth place in both the shot put and discus events.
Boys head coach Kevin Butera noted that he was impressed with the team’s performance at the championship meet.
“Considering we finished the dual meet season 1-5, for us to finish fifth out of 12 teams in the best conference in Massachusetts I was very happy,” Butera said. “The boys competed with confidence and fought for higher seeding at the Division 2 Championships next week, which were big keys to their performances.”
Butera noted the championship closes out a hit or miss regular season for the team, which struggled in dual meets throughout the season despite having strong individual results in many of the meets the team lost.
“We lost three close meets were we just could not seem to catch a break,” Butera said. “With the Bay State Conference being so strong this year being a good team was not enough to win meets, you also need to catch some lucky breaks along the way.”
The boys will bring 10 athletes to the state meet, which will be held this Saturday. Butera is confident they will perform well enough to advance further into the postseason.
“Several of those athletes should be ranked near the top of their events and can hopefully move onto the All-State Championship on June 4,” Butera said. “Our relay teams should also be able to score team points and possibly move on to All-States.”
Despite preparing for states, Butera is already also looking ahead to next season’s team. He noted that the team will lose 10 seniors to graduation, but is hoping his strong junior class will step up and fill important leadership roles.
On the girls side, Caroline Mcgrath placed third in the 2-mile run, with Lindsey Sullivan finishing in ninth place.
In the 400m hurdles, Tori Lynch placed fourth with 1:09.52, and Courtney Redmond finished in fifth at 1:09.52.
The girls finished the 4x100 relay in fifth place with 51.92, and the 4x400 meter relay in fourth place at 4:21.58.
See more photos from the BSC meet at hometownweekly.net.
