Watch Luke Armbruster clock a MD #4 3200 - and a big personal best - at Saturday's Last Track To Philly! All videos will be uploaded over the next few days.
Last year, Georgetown Prep's annual Last Track to Philly invitational was postponed due to bad weather. It's rescheduled date caused conflict with many public schools, causing a significant decline in attendance.
However, if you were at the Hanley Center on Saturday you would never have guessed that the meet's attendance and competition level suffered last season. Situated perfectly between invitational and championship season it provides both an opportunity for top athletes and relays to clock national-caliber marks, as well as give JV runners one last chance to compete before the spring.
Saturday's edition was the largest (in terms of number of teams) since 2013 and there were plenty of outstanding performances. The meet kicked off with the BCC boys becoming the first team this season to go under 11 minutes in the DMR, winning with a final time of 10:54.58. Both Northern and Mount St. Joseph finished under the previous MD #1 time held by Northwest.
Georgetown Prep's indoor track is not an exceptionally fast track, but don't tell that to the Mount Hebron girls. They won the 4x200 by over four seconds, clocking a season-best time of 1:44.73 that is also good for a MD #4 ranking. The three faster teams all recorded their season best times at the Virginia Showcase last weekend.
Coming off her fast 1600 at the SMAC Classic, Hayley Jackson took the drama out of her showdown with Marshall's Heather Holt by leading wire-to-wire in the mile. To be fair it was Holt's second race of the day - she anchored the Statesmen's DMR to a victory with a 5:01 1600 leg - and Jackson ran like the fresher runner. She is still the only Maryland girl to dip under five minutes this season.
Dalton Hengst may have made headlines on Saturday up at the Yale Track Classic, but his teammates dropped some fast times of their own back in Maryland. Lucas Wright led the McDonogh SMR to a win in 3:37.84 - a MD #2 time behind Oxon Hill and just off the New Balance Indoor Nationals Championship qualifying time (it did make the Emerging Elite time of 3:39.00).
The Mount Hebron girls came back in the 4x400 with their sights set on their second win of the day, but they settled for second behind St. John's who went under 4:00. The Vikings' 4:02.72 is a MD #4 ranking. The Reservoir boys also had a great race, dipping under 3:30 and setting a new school record.
The boys 3200 was an interesting race that certainly turned some heads among the remaining spectators. Northern's Charlie Sweeney led comfortably through the 1600, but that's when St. Andrew's Luke Armbruster (who had won the invitational mile just hours earlier) made his move. Armbruster showed little sign of fatigue and dropped a fast final 800 en route to a huge personal best of 9:32 for the win.
During the 4x800s the Hanley Center was filled with possibly the most energy it had all day. The Churchill and Atholton girls went back-and-forth the entire race, keeping a sub-10 pace all the way. Senior anchor Julia Reicin led the Bulldogs to the victory, just missing the MD #1 ranking (they settled for #2 at 9:53.11). Atholton also joined the exclusive sub-10 club at 9:58.44.
In the field, Manchester Valley's Adam Melville cleared 6'4 in the high jump for the first time in his career, joining many others in a tie for the second spot on the Maryland leaderboard.