Loucks Games: Baloga sets U.S. record, Ford runs to No. 2 U.S. 2023 time, Negrete 2nd gold

WHITE PLAINS — If you missed it, well, that's understandable.

The scraped skin on one shoulder served as evidence of what occurred, even if the clock seemed to dispute it.

Karrie Baloga tripped over a barrier during the girls 2,000-meter steeplechase at Saturday's final day of the 55th annual Loucks Games at White Plains High.

Down she went and up she came.

Up and running, as if nothing had happened.

Maybe, she'd later figure, the fall cost her half a second.

What it didn't cost her was the race championship, a meet record, the U.S. girls national high school record and the U.S. women's U20 record.

No, Baloga, the super-gifted Cornwall runner, who'll compete for the University of Colorado next year, checked all those boxes with her 6:22.25 finish.

Her time broke those records by more than two seconds.

Of falling, Baloga said, "I was moving so fast, just going from the gun. My reaction was to get up and keep going, It happens to pros. It's not surprising."

Also not surprising was the fact Baloga got the high school record, since that was her aim.

Now Baloga, who was named the meet's top female track athlete, is looking to run the event even faster.

"This just shows where my fitness is at. I'm going to be flying, under 6:20, or that's the goal," she said, noting she plans to work on little things to get that desired result.

"I'm just having fun," she said.

Brewster's Pat Ford, Ursuline's Prizila Negrete among those celebrating

The Loucks Games, which drew about 3,000 competitors from 12 states and two Canadian provinces, were a huge success for multiple local athletes.

Included were Brewster's Pat Ford and Ursuline's Prizila Negrete.

The senior Ford, a Vanderbilt commit, whose pre-meet personal best in the boys 3,000-meter steeplechase was 9:34.82, toed the starting line feeling "a little beat up" after a 13th-place finish Friday in the boys 3,200.

But Saturday "kind of worked out" and then some.

Ford went out quickly and looked comfortable staying in second place until after clearing the last hurdle.

Then he ran down Newtown, Connecticut's Soheib Dissa, catching him about three meters before the finish, then hitting the line in 9:28.04, .08 ahead of Dissa.

Ford's time was the second fastest run by a high school boy in the U.S. this spring.

Suffern's Mason Mayer clocked a personal-best 9:52.85 for fourth in the race.

Negrete didn't come close to grabbing a record in the discus, not even a personal-best mark. But it would have been hard for her day to have gone better.

A day after she won the girls shot put with a personal-best throw, she won the discus title at 120-5 and was named the meet's top girls field athlete.

She did all this in front of her mom, Wendy Suazo, and dad, Miguel Negrete, to whom Prizila gave her two Loucks championship T-shirts, and won the discus in front of her paternal grandfather, who was in town from Mexico and had only seen her compete once before and that was in shot put.

"I love the Loucks Games , even though I don't have space on the wall anymore," Negrete joked, referring to shelf space for not just this year's three Loucks trophies but also for the shot, discus and top field athlete award she won two years ago.

Negrete had noted Friday that she had passed on her prom to compete at Loucks and Saturday remarked, "This is what I wanted. Everybody thought I was crazy missing the prom. But sometimes you have to be a little bit crazy."

Ketcham's Hailey Hrouda threw107-3 for third in the girls discus.

Negrete's teammate, Surai Sealy, had an 11-inch personal best of 38-4 to win the girls triple jump. Cornwall's Emma Burich was third at 37-7.

"It felt smooth and I had a lot of speed and the landing was nice," Sealy said of her winning jump.

She noted her season goal is 40-0.

Ellenville's Amelia Benjamin cleared a personal outdoor-best 5-8 to win the girls high jump.

That moved her into the second slot in the state among girls this season.

Benjamin, who has high jumped 5-9 indoors and who'll jump for Albany next year, has won silver at states in the event both indoors and outdoors.

While saying her season goal is simply to "always do better," she also noted her season goal is to win gold this time at states.

Lavelle vanquishes 4:30 enemy

It was like an invisible fence.

Unseen but also impenetrable.

4:30 was Joe Lavelle's barrier, his unscalable wall.

Until Saturday.

The Rye Neck senior, who'll run for North Carolina's Elon University next year, couldn't qualify for the top mile race at this year's meet because he hadn't run a fast enough 1,600-meter time this spring.

But running in the boys Section 1 mile championship, Lavelle clocked a Loucks Games Section 1 boys mile meet-record 4:26.27 for the win.

Noting he'd seen seconds peel away from his 3,200 time this season, he noted, "My mile never improved."

"I'm really happy," he said.

Now, Lavelle, who hopes to compete in the 3,200 at next month's state championships, is toying with the idea of trying to qualify to compete at two distances.

"There will be a lot of competition,' he said, "but I'd love a shot at the mile, as well," Lavelle said.

Fox Lane's Noah Bender, a University of Chicago commit, was a close second, winning silver in 4:27.83. Briarcliff's Miles Chamberlain (4:28.64) won bronze. In 4:32.6, John Jay-East Fishkill's Rocco Bueti was fourth and John Jay-Cross River's Brodie Schneider (4:32.71) also gained the podium in fifth.

Cornwall junior Caigan Leonard won both gold and silver Saturday.

She knocked .11 off her personal best to win the girls 100-meter hurdles in 14.88 and clocked 1:04.83 for second in the 400-meter hurdles.

Explaining how she'd cut time from the 100 hurdles, Leonard said, "I've been really trying to get started fast and get my lead leg fast on the ground. ... Once my hamstring skims the hurdle, I try to get (my leg) down."

She's hoping for a top-three finish in the 100 hurdles at the state championships.

Both Ursuline's Elena Olson (second place, 14.95) and Ketcham's Aarysa Moore (fourth place, 15.06) ran personal-best times in the 100 hurdles.

"My goal was to break 15, which I did today," said Olson.

She said she sometimes psyches herself out before stepping to the starting line but competing against "big names" Saturday motivated her.

Olson's hoping to qualify for states in the 100 and 400 hurdles and 4x100 and 4x400 relays.

In the 400 hurdles, Nanuet's Samantha Dow was third in 1:04.97.

More gold

In a personal-best 45-8.75, Hackley's Michael Abbey won the boys triple jump. That jump placed him fourth n the state among high school boys.

The local area also had a strong showing in boys high jump with University of Alabama-bound Edgemont senior Connor Fisher winning at 6-3.

He has cleared 6-5 and noted his season goal is 6-8 but Saturday's focus was simply on winning, he said.

Logan McCprmick of White Plains took silver at 6-2 and Peekskill's Armani Brown was fourth at 6-0.

The girls Section 1 mile went to Byram Hills' Lelah Altman (5:30.46). Fellow Bobcat Angelina Nie was second (5:33.22), Pleasantville's Camilla Browand (5:33.87) was third, Peekskill's Brianna Carter (5:36.29) was fourth and Nanuet's Katie Schmid (5:36.77) was fifth.

Other medalists

Iona Prep's Jake Gherardi threw the javelin a personal-best 160-9 for bronze.

Washingtonville's Connor Efinger (2,943 points) finished third in the boys pentathlon and Rye Neck's Jaden Snow (2,917) was fourth.

Scarsdale's Eve Gibney amassed 2,832 points for fourth in the girls pentathlon.

In a personal-best 11-6,, Suffern's Olivia DeBellis took fourth in the girls pole vault. John Jay-East Fishkill's Maia Perillo also cleared an 11-6 PB but in more attempts, so medaled in fifth.

Mount Vernon resident Jaylin Santiago of Fordham Prep, who PB'd to win bronze Friday in the boys 200, clocked another personal best Saturday, this time running 48.71 for fourth place in the boys 400.

A day after running a personal-best time to finish fourth in the boys 3,200, Nyack's Matt Schutzbank again medaled, this time running a personal-best 4:15.72 for fifth in the boys mile.

Horace Greeley's Niko Wright clocked 10.93 for fifth in the boys 100-meter dash.

Arlington's Riley Pettigrew ran 12.15 for fifth in the girls 100.

Mount Vernon's Eloha-Karmiel Yitzchak took fifth in the boys 400-meter hurdles, finishing in 57.57.

And Ketcham's William Dickson cleared `12-0 for fifth in the boys pole vault.

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Relays

Clarkstown South (8:17.35) finished third and Tappan Zee (8:20.55) in the Nick Panaro boys 4x800 relay.

Somers (9:56.67) was fifth in the Nick Panaro girls 4x800.

Cornwall (9:35.46) was fourth in the girls regular 4x800.

Mount Vernon (43.81) was fifth in the boys 4x100 relay.

Ursuline (49.79) was second and Arlington (50,18) was fourth in the girls 4x100.

Mount Vernon (3:27.67) captured fifth in the boys 4x400.

And Newburgh Free Academy (4:19.6) was fifth in the girls 4x400.

Team scoring

With 70 girls teams scoring, Ursuline finished second by only two points 55-53 to team winner Saratoga Springs. Cornwall was third with 39 points.

Newtown, Connecticut was the top scoring boys team with 77 squads scoring. It had 33 points. Nyack and Iona Prep were two of five teams that tied for seventh with 16 points.

Nancy Haggerty covers cross-country, track & field, field hockey, skiing, ice hockey, basketball, girls lacrosse and other sporting events for The Journal News/lohud. Follow her on Twitter at @HaggertyNancy.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Loucks Games: Baloga gets U.S. record, Ford and Negrete also star