Blair track jump starts in Championships

The Blair indoor track team survived pulled muscles and petty disqualifications to rack up eight hard-earned points at the County Championships today.

Paving the way was senior Julia Elliott, who earned all eight points after placing first in the 55m-dash semis in 7.3 seconds and then fifth in the subsequent finals with an improved time of seven seconds flat.

Coach Hawkins attributes Elliott's point accumulation to her skillful techniques. "[Elliott] leans forward out of the black, comes slow from the blocks and propels towards the finish line, making her run strong all the time," she said.

Elliott agrees with her coach and stressed the importance of rapidity and smooth paces in quick runs. "[The 55m-dash] is a really short race so you have to get out fast and take really big strides," she said, then added, "if you don't get out fast, you're done."

But Elliott did not limit her dominance to the 55m-dash. In just 43.75 seconds, Elliott whizzed past opponents and zipped around the track to place second in her heat in the 300m-dash.

Representing the Blazerettes in the 1600m-run was another star, junior Laurel Jefferson. But Jefferson's twinkle was dimmed when she slipped from second to seventh place in the last 400 meters of the race.

Although she finished in an applaudable 5:43, just seconds over her previous time of 5:40 in the Jan 2 meet, Jefferson was disappointed in her performance. "I'm always out there and then I loose my place in the last two laps," she said with agitation, "and that's what angers me."

Jefferson was not the only player feeling frustrated. In the girls' 4x800m-relay, the teams finished 21 seconds over their previous time of 10:49. Senior William Wang was disqualified from the 300m-dash for "wiggling his arm" before the start gun fired and finished the 55m-dash 1:30 over his previous time of 6:30 after pulling his hamstring during the race and senior co-captain Jossi Fritz-Mauer ran the 1600m-run in five minutes, more than 30 seconds over his previous time.

A mixture of poor technique and sour luck contributed to Fritz-Mauer's loss, according to the co-captain. "I never felt like I got the rhythm and I felt like my pace was too slow," he said. He then added optimistically, "Hopefully I just had a bad day and I can come back next week."

Hawkins had a different explanation for the team's slump. She contends that lack of practice due to exams contributed a major blow to the team's abilities to prepare for the championship.

Junior Mercy Ankomah agrees, blaming unpreparedness for her own poor times and the overall performance of the team. "We didn't practice enough this week because of exams so not everybody was good enough to run their best," she said. "Before I ran 7.6 seconds [in the 55m-dash] but this week I ran eight seconds. Today's the championships but we haven't practiced and that's not good for us."

But amidst the gloom that hung over today's meet were several clearings. Five records were broken, including one shot put record (54'2) broken by Wootton High School that had stood since 1987 and a 55m-hurdles record from 1989 that Gaithersburg High School shattered with a time of 8.45 seconds. Other records broken include records in the 500m-dash broken by Gaithersburg (1:05), the 800m-relay record shattered by Walter Johnson High School (8:15) and the 4x200m-relay record broken by Gaithersburg (1:31).

Today's meet was the County Championship which qualifies the top players from Montgomery County for next month's regionals. Although Blair has not yet qualified, the team has high hopes that the final meet on Feb 4 will make up for lost time.