York's Cary Drake 3rd in 1-mile at New Englands. Here's how all Seacoast athletes fared.
BOSTON — York High School senior Cary Drake took her talents from Maine to Massachusetts and delivered another strong showing.
Drake placed third in the 1-mile in the New England High School Indoor Track & Field Championship, placing third with a time of 4 minutes 57.64 seconds at the Reggie Lewis Track and Athletic Center. The winner of the race was Katherine Bohlke of Newington, Connecticut, in 4:52.96. Tess Sherry of Conard, Connecticut, was second on 4:57.20, less than a half-second ahead of Drake.
"What a great race," York head coach Ted Hutch said. "Cary stayed with the leader most of the race; the girl had an incredible kick. Cary ran another sub-five minute mile, and she is the best distance runner York has ever seen, and the best we may ever see."
Drake's third-place finish comes on the heels of her winning the one-mile run in the Maine Class B state championship, where she was second in both the two-mile and the 800.
Drake's one-mile time at the New England meet was nearly 2 seconds faster than her time at the state meet (4:59.07).
"I was looking at the position of the rest, I wasn't worried about the time," Hutch said of Drake's performance. "And I don't think she was either, just trying to win it."
"She shows up every day to practice with a big smile on her face," Hutch added of Drake. "It really affects the rest of the team when she does that, too. She works harder than anybody else, and just sets a good example for the rest of the team."
Marshwood's Andre Clark, Winnacunnet's Oliver Duffy, Newmarket's Alanna Hagen, Oyster River's Mackenzie Cook earn top 5 finishes
Duffy placed fourth in the long jump (21 feet, 11.75 inches), and Clark finished fifth in the 55 meter finals (6.51 seconds) at the New England meet.
"For an athlete so very new to a sport, in Oliver's case, four months, he had a remarkable showing at New England's," said Winnacunnet head coach Alison Duffy, who is his mother. "We chose to pull him from the relay as his three events that he qualified for (long jump, high jump and 4x200) were all going at the same time. At a meet of this stature, it was just too much."
"Long jump is a complicated event and though he had a beautiful jump at the state meet, duplicating this can be tough," Duffy added. "So for what he considered a bad day, was actually quite impressive."
Additionally, Portsmouth Christian Academy's Tim Kelm was seventh in the 55-meter run (6.55).
In the girls 1000, Hagen finished fifth (2:57.63), and in the same race, York High School's Zoe Carroll was seventh (3:02.93) and Dover's Anique Poulin was 12th (3:04.72).
In the girls 2-mile, Cook was fifth in the race (10:50.12). In the 1-mile, Oyster River's Haley Kavanagh was sixth (5:00.96), and Winnacunnet's Charlotte Koutalidis was 13th (5:16.20).
Other notable performances include
Exeter's 4x400 team (Clara Knab, Isabelle Bremer, Rayna Thompson and Martelle McBride) finished ninth (4:07.83), and the 4x800 team (Bremer, Alexis Paterna, Brianna Paterna and Amber Orleans) placed 14th (10:05.03).
Knab was 13th in the 600m (1:39.70), and Portsmouth Christian Academy's Jonas Teeter was 10th in the boys 1-mile (4:28.26) and Tim Kelm placed seventh in the 55m dash (6.55), York's Gavin Davis was 10th in the boys high jump (6-03.00).
Teeter also set two new PCA records, with his 1-mile time (10 second improvement) and also his 2-mile time of 9:34.43 also set a new school record (improvement of over 60 seconds).
This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: York High School's Cary Drake third in 1-mile at New Englands
