NORTHAMPTON — The Northampton boys track & field team performed evenly between the track and field events in its 93-50 win against Valley League rival Amherst Regional on Monday.
Northampton won five field events en route to 46 points. Wallace Johnson took first place in the shot put (33 feet, 3 inches) and discus (84-0). Zack Ellis finished first in the javelin (156-6) and second in the triple jump (35-2½).
Cole Lavalle took first in the 110-meter high hurdles (16.3 seconds) and 400 low hurdles (60.8) for Hamp, which had 47 points and five wins on the track.
Tim Jacques, Phil Hempstead and Sam Norton took first (10:37), second (10:55) and third (11:15.4), respectively, in the 2-mile. Nik Smith finished first in the 100 dash (11.1).
“We set up some good races with our coaching staff and some of our athletes,” Hamp coach Brandon Palmer said. “Last week we had a pretty good workout on Thursday. It made me think these guys were ready for some pretty big races.
Northampton and Amherst split the relays, with the Blue Devils winning the 4×100 (44.0) and the Hurricanes winning the 4×400 (3:46.4).
“Having Amherst coming to town is kind of a big deal,” Palmer said. “We get out here, we want to shake the legs. We had good weather today. I told the guys to take advantage of the opportunity and get out here and race hard for it.”
Meikkel Murray had a strong turnout for the Hurricanes. He finished first in the long jump (18 feet, 11 inches) and second in 400 (54.4). It was the first time the senior participated in either event.
“I literally just taught him the long jump before we started because we hadn’t had time to work on it,” Amherst coach David Thompson said. “He got it down and he won it.”
Murray’s known for his basketball skills, most notably reaching 1,000 points during his career for the Hurricanes. He joined the track & field team this year for the workouts, which would help him with basketball.
“I think I did pretty good,” Murray said. “I don’t really know all the times and stuff, but just to finish it was really just my goal. Coach Thompson has taught me a lot in not even that long, so it’s cool.”
Jack Yanko finished first in the mile (4:33) and Aiden Foucault-Etheridge finished first in the 800 (1:58.3) for Amherst.
Marshall Hanke ran the opening leg in the 4×400 relay and filled a void in the 4×100 relay after a runner suffered from a stiff hamstring.
“I’m proud of guys stepping up,” Thompson said. “I tell them all the time that it’s never a rebuilding situation, just reloading. We’re just putting some guys in. We got some young guys that are tough. We just wanted to get a lot of guys some reps and some time so we could train off of that.”
Amherst has been dealing with a few injuries, Thompson said, so having young runners fill the voids could help going forward.
“I’m really looking forward to Western Mass,” Thompson said. “We’re just trying to get some guys better. If we could have ran some more races today, I would have had all the guys in one more to get more workouts in.”