A year ago, the Central Catholic girls track team made a little program history by capturing its first Merrimack Valley Conference Championship team title in two decades.
On Friday afternoon, the Raiders made history again – winning it for the second straight year.
Central Catholic was led by five first places and compiled 104 points, which was more than enough to far outdistance a strong Billerica team for second place as the Indians finished with 66 points. Lowell, North Andover, Haverhill, Andover, Methuen, Dracut, Chelmsford and Tewksbury finished 3-10.
“To win it in back-to-back seasons with that kind of point difference is kind of a big deal,” said head coach Shawn Dumas. “It shows how hard these girls work day in and day out and it just means that we were clicking on all cylinders. We scored 104 points and you don’t get that without being elite in some events and depth all-around in other events. It’s just wild that they executed this well and that they wanted to win this so badly.”
Anya Neira was one of the four individuals to take a first place, doing so in the 300-meter with a time of 40.73 seconds.
“(Throughout) the whole season my goal was to (achieve a personal record) and break 41 (seconds), which I did today,” she said. “I was so ecstatic because I finally rewarded myself after a lot of hard work throughout the season. On top of that, I re-broke the school record with today’s performance and we won as a team. I’m so proud of every girl and coach that’s a part of this team and couldn’t have gotten to where I am without them.”
Laura Fennessy took the 600-meter with a time of 1:38.07.
“I had a lot of great competition so it felt really good to set a personal record in such an important meet,” she said.
Later in the meet, Fennessy joined Emma Finch, Veralie Perrier and Rayniah Mercedat to win the 4×400 relay with a combined time of 4:08.26. Perrier also won the long jump (17-10.25) and the other first place came from Macy Daigle in the high jump as she cleared 5-3.
“I’ve been battling an Achilles tendonitis injury this season so to execute in a big meet like this felt really good,” Daigle said. “It was always really awesome to see all of my teammates succeed today with so many personal records. We’re peaking at the perfect time and our hard work has been so rewarding.”
Mercedat also picked up a second place in the 300 (41.37), while junior Madeline Courtemanche had a great day, taking second in both the mile (11:03.75) and the 1,000 meters (3:04.07).
Besides the overall team performance from Central Catholic, the other big highlight came from Methuen sophomore Lauren Quarm, who broke the meet record winning the 55-meter dash for the second straight year with a time of 7.11 seconds.
“I was really happy with the way I ran and to see myself progress makes me even happier,” she said. “It’s making all the hard work worth it and paying off. I’m not only excited that I won the MVC championship coming in first, but also setting a meet record.”
Said head coach Brittany Caprio: “What impressed me most today from Lauren was her mindset. We talked before the finals about how she needed to run with the confidence that she is going to need moving forward to the states. It was time for her to take a big transition in her mental game and she fully adapted.”
The other two first places came from Haverhill’s Madeline Goncalves, who won the shot put throwing 37-8.5 and Lauren Downer, who was tops in the 1,000 meters with a time of 3:00.53.
“I really wanted to go out in the front and try my best to keep (the lead),” said Downer. “I made sure to push the last lap to avoid getting caught towards the end. I was more worried about place for this meet, and will focus more on my time next week at the divisional meet.”
Twitter: @JamiePote