If you’re all about track & field like we are here at Bay State Running, Sunday will be a day you may want to mark on your calendar. At the TRACK at New Balance, beginning at 9 o’clock in the morning and continuing to the early part of the afternoon, is the Marathon Sports Winter Warrior High School Invitational, a meet presented by New Balance. Once that’s complete, Marathon Sports will be back at it again with its second annual Winter Classic, an open meet at 4 p.m., that’s designed to be a community event for all age groups. Recently added is a Race/Walk.
According to meet director Dennis Sheppard, the Winter Warrior Invite is on pace to attract around 1,400 entries. The meet will feature 12 events, including the 55m, 55m HH, 300m, 600m, 1.000m, mile, two mile, high jump, long jump, 4x200m, 4x400m and 4x800m. The Winter Classic includes the shot, weight throw, triple jump, long jump, pole vault, 60m hurdles, 60m dash. mile, 200m, 400m, 800m, 3K and 5K.
Registration for both meets are done on athletic.net. The deadline to enter is Thursday at 8 p.m.
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The Beantown Winter Classic, held this past weekend at the TRACK at New Balance, proved to be a major success in its initial year, particularly for our Bay State athletes that competed in the two-day meet. We highlight some of those star during Day 1 of the competition on Saturday. Day 2 on Sunday featured several more.
Just a week after winning the Foot Locker Nationals, Tamrat Gavenas dominated the Invitational/Club Two Mile with an indoor PR and nation-leading 9 minutes, 4.03 seconds. It was a solo effort for Gavenas, who won the race by 34 seconds! Except for an 800m stretch near the end of the race, the Harvard-bound senior generally ran splits between averaged around 33-34 second 200m splits and finished with a final lap of 31.53, his best split for the 16-lap race.
Natick’s Emmanuella Edozien concluded a prosperous weekend at the meet. As we reported previously, she finished third (7.29) in the 55m dash on Saturday to nationally-ranked R.I., sprinters Lisa and Xenia Raye of West Warwick, where she also clocked a PR of 7.27 in the prelims. The Red Hawks junior, the state’s No. 1 hurdler, came back on Sunday and took runner-up honors in the 55m HH with a time of 8.39. What was more impressive was her time In the prelims where the gifted hurdler ran a PR of 8.22. That effort ties Edozien for No. 11 on MA’s all-time list. The state record is held by former Brockton great Vanessa Clerveaux, who won the New England title in 2012 with an eye-popping 7.97. The US-born Haitian athlete was a silver medalist at the 2018 Central American and Caribbean Games.
It will be interesting to see how low Edozien will get her time down to in the 55m hurdles this winter after her fast, early-season effort at the Beantown Classic. Seems like she’s on pace to get her time in that low 8.15 range. And remember, she’s only a junior. She still has more one year left.
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In case you missed it, Peabody’s Alex Jackson is currently ranked No. 1 in the country in the shot. On Dec. 14, Jackson unleashed a more than five-foot PR of 66-6.25 to capture his specialty at the NEC Winter Festival. He won the event by 17 feet! Jackson also achieved a milestone in the weight throw where he exceeded 70 feet for the first time with a heave of 70.4. That effort ranks him fourth nationally.
