Padua exits indoor season as national champion, state's best in 3 relays

Padua's 4x800 relay team left no doubt they are the best in the country.

A month after running the nation's fastest time in the event, the team of Anna Bockius, Sophia Holgado, Kelsey Wolff and Molly Flanagan on Sunday won the 4x800 at New Balance Nationals in Boston, one of two high school national championship meets held over the weekend.

As she entered her final 200-meter lap around The TRACK at New Balance, a state-of-the-art facility at the company's headquarters, Flanagan heard the public address announcer all but call the race. She crossed the line eight seconds ahead of the second-place team as pyrotechnics fired in the infield, then huddled with her teammates in the outside lanes of the banked track.

"We knew we had a shot," Bockius said. "We had confidence in each other."

Twenty-three hours earlier some 200 miles away, Tatnall gapped the field at The Armory track in New York at Nike Nationals. The Hornets relay team of Carlita Kaliher, Abby Downin, Katie Payne and Ruby Schwelm finished in 20:14.42, the second-fastest time in Delaware history.

Padua and Tatnall are the first Delaware schools to win an indoor national championship since Tatnall won the 4xmile at New Balance Nationals in 2012. Their performances cap a winter in which First State competitors made several revisions to Delaware's indoor track and field record books.

The season has introduced new state record holders in nine events, including five of the six individual distance events across both genders and three relay events claimed by Padua.

"Everyone in Delaware this year has been upping the intensity," said Kaliher, a Tatnall senior. "It inspires you to work harder."

For Padua, confidence had been building through a month of high-level competitions across the East Coast after Delaware's state meet on Feb. 3. Their breakthrough race unfolded the following week at the Millrose Games. Padua won the 4x800 in 8:49.86, a state record by 20 seconds and the fastest time ever run by a high school squad at The Armory.

In the last 40 years, no other team has taken down a Delaware record in the regularly-contested events by that margin.

"Going into it, our goal was to maybe run sub-9 [minutes]," Flanagan said. "So to see the time that we put out was just crazy. I couldn't even believe it. I didn't realize what we had done until later on."

Two weeks later, Bockius, Holgado and Flanagan joined Madelyn Mead on a state-record 4x400 (3:52.58) at Staten Island's Ocean Breeze. The same group ran the fastest distance medley in Delaware history (11:40.86) in a fourth-place finish Friday at New Balance Nationals.

Two days later, the 4x800 ran 8:53.46 to win the national title. The school's Millrose Games performance was the only time in the U.S. faster in the indoor season.

"We've always talked about it, but I feel like at the beginning of the season I just couldn't have imagined we're sitting here right now talking about this," Holgado said from outside the school Wednesday next to her relay teammates. "We're sitting here and we just won nationals. I know we work hard in practice and everything, but it's everyone's goal to do something like that."

The relay team agreed they were more excited than nervous entering the national competition even as the top seed in the 4x800. They arrived early to the meet, which had more pomp and circumstance than a typical competition with individual and team video-board introductions, lights around the track that pace runners and a line of fireworks down the home straight. Watching the fast races that preceded them added to the excitement.

Tatnall wins 4xmile national title; state record shakeup continues

Entering Millrose Games, Kaliher figured someone would break the 4x800 state record of 9:09.56.

In the end, the meet that bills itself as the most prestigious in the country ended up playing out like a version of a Delaware meet with Padua and Tatnall in first and second. Both shattered the mark with Tatnall finishing in 8:56.83, the nation's fourth-fastest time this winter.

On Saturday, Tatnall opened up a large lead on the second leg of the 4xmile. Schwelm, the anchor, ran the team's fastest split (4:58.87) as she lapped competitors and received encouragement from her teammates on the infield.

The team selected the seldom contested 4xmile feeling their strength was in the longer distance events. Tatnall placed three runners in the top five of the 1,600 and 3,200 at the indoor state meet. Everyone on the relay team had run 5:02 in the mile or faster.

"We knew we had something special," Schwelm said.

Delaware has also seen standout performances in individual events in the weeks following the state meet. The three fastest girls 800 times around a 200-meter track occurred at Ocean Breeze in Staten Island the final Saturday in February.

Tatnall's Downin finished second in a state-record time of 2:09.74. She was followed by Flanagan and Middletown's Isabelle Walsh in 2:10.40 and 2:10.88, respectively.

The girls indoor 800 state record entering the year — Lydia Olivere's 2:13.93 — was broken three times this season. Walsh, the first to the record on Jan. 6, placed fourth at Nike Nationals in 2:09.22, the fastest time in state history. (It won't be recognized as a state record as it occurred outside the official competition season.)

Walsh also placed sixth in the mile at New Balance Nationals. Her 4:46.27 finish earlier in the season at Millrose Games is the state record, converted to 4:44.61 for 1,600 meters.

At Nike Nationals, Tatnall's Schwelm, Payne and Kaliher produced the second-, fourth- and sixth-fastest 3,200 times in state history. Schwelm's 10:24.26 over two miles is surpassed in state history only by Tatnall's Haley Pierce.

Flanagan, fifth in Division I at the cross country state meet in November, ran a 400 state record of 56.11 on Feb. 16.

Teammate Juliana Balon, winner of the 55, 200, 400 and long jump at the state meet, produced the third-fastest 60 (7.62) and 200 times (24.71) in Delaware history at New Balance Nationals.

Middletown's Simone Cooper placed fifth in the shotput at New Balance Nationals with a throw of 43-10, the third-best in state history.

Camerin Williams, the A.I. du Pont senior who won the Division II race at the cross country state championships, ran more than a half-second faster than Jason Lilly's 400 state record in a fifth-place finish at New Balance Nationals, completing the two laps in 47.88.

Williams had not run faster than 49 seconds before nationals.

Williams said his training still takes an 800/1,600 focus. He tried to go into the meet with little-to-no pressure.

"I'm just a kid from Delaware, another kid in my heat," he said. "I just ran the best I could."

Ethan Walther, the Salesianum junior who set state records in the 800, 1,600 and 3,200 this season, improved on his 800 personal best with a 1:53.22 at an open meet at The Armory March 2. He finished 23rd at New Balance Nationals with a 1:54.41.

Smyrna's Elijah Williams placed 19th in the 60-meter hurdles at New Balance Nationals. His personal best two weeks earlier of 7.97 is tied for second in state history.

In February, Odessa ran the second-fastest 4x200 time in state history (1:29.85).

Brandon Holveck is a high school sports reporter. Contact him at bholveck@delawareonline.com.

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Padua and Tatnall relays win national titles, rewrite Delaware history