Bishop Guertin girls win 10th straight indoor track title
HANOVER – Even when things could have gone wrong Sunday for the Bishop Guertin High School girls track team, the Cardinals found a way to make it right.
HANOVER – Even when things could have gone wrong Sunday for the Bishop Guertin High School girls track team, the Cardinals found a way to make it right.
Betsy Garnick avoided disaster twice to win two events and Molly McCabe, Jacklyn Dubois and Sarah Burke also won events to lead Bishop Guertin to its 10th straight indoor track title at Dartmouth College in Hanover.
The Cardinals won the Division I crown by recording 107 points, 57 points ahead of second-place Exeter. It was the most points scored by a girls team at an indoor championship since 2002, when Hollis Brookline scored 113 1/3 to win the Class IMS title.
Timberlane and Pinkerton tied for third with 41 points, while Nashua South recorded 36 points to take fifth. Merrimack was seventh with 26 points while Nashua North was 10th (11) and Alvirne 11th (10).
“It means a lot,” Bishop Guertin coach Steve Hunt said. “The girls worked hard. It’s a very, very talented group. Betsy Garnick, Molly McCabe, Jackyln Dubois in the shot put. And we’re only losing two girls.”
Bishop Guertin twice avoided disaster in the 55 and the 55 hurdles. Garnick won both events by a combined seven-hundredths of a second, but after crossing the finish line in the hurdles, Garnick and Exeter’s Hillary Holmes, who finished second, bumped into each other. Holmes took the worst of it, falling to ground, but Garnick stumbled and kept her feet. Garnick’s time of 8.21 seconds set a division record.
If the mishap affected Garnick in the 55, it was hard to tell. She beat South’s Arashana Yanes by two-hundredths of a second, but again stumbled after crossing the finish line. This time, she went down, but managed to turn the fall into a summersault and came out unscathed.
“I just wanted it so bad, I kept leaning and I knew I was going down,” Garnick said. “I used to do gymnastics, so I just rolled into it. Everyone was shocked, but I was like ‘oh, I’m fine.’ ”
Garinck was well enough to help the Cardinals’ 4x200-meter relay team finish first (1:49.74) and she also finished second in the long jump.
McCabe turned in a solid day as well, winning the 1,000 (3:04.38), finishing third in the 1,500 to go along with running a leg of the 4x200 and the 4x400, which also finished first (4:08.45).
Dubois won the shot put with a toss of 37-2, while Burke took the 600 in 1:35.17, setting a division record.
Bishop Guertin’s Shauna Salem finished third in the 3,000 and sixth in the 1,500 while Melissa LaCoste came in second in the high jump and Michelle Langlois tied for fifth in the same event. Sarah Murphy also finished sixth in the 1,000.
Yanes led South with her second-place finish in the 55, a third-place finish in the long jump and a fifth-place in the 300, while Adaeze Obinelo came in second in the shot put. Mia Eisenhandler came in second in the 3,000 and fifth in the 1,500. South also got a fifth-place finish in the 4x200.
Merrimack’s Julia Perry won the 300, finishing in 41.89, while Emily Pollard came in second in the 600. Merrimack also got a second-place finish in the 4x200.
Lauren Kirby of North took third in the shot put and Kayla Farren came in fifth in the 1,000 while Keilah Ireland finished fifth in the high jump and the Titans’ 4x400 relay team came in fifth.
Alvirne’s 4x800 relay team of Erica Notini, Sarah Rossetti, Marie Morrier and Lydia Lyman finished first, setting a school record by finishing in 10:04.16.
