WESTFIELD — South Hadley’s 4×400-meter relay team thought it entered Saturday’s Central/West Division 2 Girls Track & Field Championships with the No. 2 seed and a school record.
Only the seed survived the morning.
A former Tigers coach from the 1990s, brought a manila folder to Westfield State to show current coach Nick Davis. South Hadley thought it set the school record at 4 minutes, 11.96 seconds at the District F&G Championships last weekend.
Apparently that didn’t cut it, as a team from 1992 completed the event in 4:09.2.
“It kind of felt really devastating at first,” South Hadley junior Sarah Fudger said.
The Tigers quickly turned it to motivation. Fudger, Lindsay Marjanski, Morgan Harrington and Kyra Shoenfeld motored to a 4:06.56, which won the event and was nearly five seconds faster than their closest competitors.
“Now we’ve got it back,” Fudger said. “Couldn’t be happier with that time.”
The finish also clinched second place for the Tigers, giving them 55.5 points. Bromfield won the meet with 98.5.
South Hadley entered the 4×400 a half point ahead of Lenox in second place. Whoever finished better in the relay would take second, and the runners knew it.
“They made history for us and destroyed it,” Davis said. “Those four girls are used to the pressure of taking out points and having the pressure on them and saying ‘let’s do this.’”
Most of Frontier Regional’s 11 points came from one finish. Freshman Olivia Vecellio won the discus with a throw of 100 feet, 9 inches. It was 7 feet, 6 inches farther than her seeded distance.
“The only thing that Olivia has to learn how to do is to stay relaxed and calm,” Frontier coach Bob Smith said. “When she tries to kill the disc, it doesn’t work.”
The Red Hawks were tied for 24th as a team with those 11 points.
Hampshire Regional, led by Melissa Gagnon in the pole vault, finished 19th. She cleared 8-6 to tie for third.
“I was kind of nervous coming in,” Gagnon said.
She’ll go back to the All-State meet after a year away. The intervening year gave her a chance to learn how to handle the moment after she struggled as a sophomore.
“Over the summer I was work my butt off trying to better myself,” she said.
South Hadley bolstered its second-place finish with a slew of additional All-State qualifiers.
The Tigers’ 4×100 relay of Amy Hampson, Kayla Carleton, Kate O’Neill and Savannah Sudyka was fourth at 52.29.
Sudyka qualified individually by finishing second in the shot put. She threw 34 feet, 4¾ inches. Tatiana Wiersman of Whitinsville Christian won at 38-6½.
“I know I could have done better,” Sudyka said. “I know that I can do it if I really push myself to do it.”
Fudger took third in the 400 hurdles in 1:08.55 to qualify for All-States.
Sophie Gatzounas will join her team, too, after finishing third in the javelin at 105-6. She came in as the top seed and wasn’t thrilled with her performance.
“It happens, nothing you can do about it. Gotta go back and fix some things, get better, try again,” Gatzounas said. “Got through third today with a crappy throw, next week I’ll have time to pick it up and chuck it farther.”
Marjanski tied for fourth in the high jump at 5-0.
“That’s all you can ask for from a freshman,” Davis said. “She killed it today.”
Kyle Grabowski can be reached at kgrabowski@gazettenet.com.