After a staggered start, she got boxed in behind a group of runners by the time she reached 200 meters. She got pushed out to lane 3 after passing through 400m. As she rounded the turn for the final stretch of the race, she got boxed in again.
Facing a talented field in the seeded 800m atTrials of Miles NYC, Amelia Everett wasn’t exactly given the greatest opportunity to win Friday night’s race.
But the Newton South senior did in a race that should pose well for the upcoming championship season and a few high-level post-season competitions.
“I thought she ran like a fartlek. She was all over the place,” said head coach Steve McChesney. “But she has the will of a race horse.”
Everett captured one of Friday’s featured high school events with a time of 2 minutes, 7.94 seconds. Still nestled in the inside lane with less than a 100m left, the Lions’ standout broke free from her position with about 50m remaining to pass eventual runner-up Paige Sheppard in the closing stages of the race. Paige crossed the line at 2:08.11.
“She told me afterwards, ‘I feel really fit,'” McChesney said. “I think she is ahead of schedule.”
Part of that schedule includes the Division 1 Championships (May 25 & 27), Meet of Champions (June 1 & 3), Brooks PR Invitational (June 14) and the outdoor nationals (June 15-18). The Brooks PR Invite in Seattle could be the most intriguing of them all. It’s there that Everett will compete against an invite-only 800m field that will be unmatched in any other meets she’s entered in this season, including the not-yet decided New Balance Nationals or Nike Outdoor Nationals.
McChesney believes a 2:03-2:04 is well within the reach of his Stanford-bound runner. That would be an effort that could erase a 44-year-old state record. The current mark is 2:04.54 by Cambridge Rindge & Latin’s star alum Darlene Beckford from 1979.
“She made enough tactical errors that we can talk about it leading up to Brooks,” McChesney said.
