Blair competes at Montgomery County Championships

MAY 12, WINSTON CHURCHILL—

Blair's Outdoor Track team competed at the Montgomery County Championships over the last two days. Eighteen runners raced and three Blair runners, all girls, finished above 6^th place in their individual events.

The girls' team finished 10^th out of 19 schools with 20 points, but the boys' team did not place at the championships because they failed to score a point in any event. Even though the teams as a whole did not perform spectacularly, coach Carl Lewin was pleased with the improvement that several individual runners showed at the championships. "Quite a few runners dropped a lot of time; Johanna Gretschel dropped over 30 seconds and got down to a 12:22 in the 3200m." Gretschel finished 12^th in the event, while Halsey Sinclair finished 1^st in the same race with a time with 11:17.

Other runners that made significant improvement according to Lewin were freshman Nilan Schnure and sophomore Ashlyn Sinclair, who both ran the 800m. Schnure finished 15^th in the boys' heat with a time of 2:06. Ashlyn ran the event in 2:18 and finished 2^nd in the girls' heat.

The main reason for the disparity in the scores between the girls' and boys' teams this season has been the lack of consistency from sophomore Josh Uzzell, one of the more dominant boy runners on the team. Uzzell injured himself earlier this year and not been at full strength all season as the injury has persisted longer he expected. Uzzell "was not able to compete" at the championships as well.

Of the boys that did compete yesterday, sophomore Aaron Townsend finished 18^th in the 400 with a time of 57.1, the 4x400 team came in 14^th place with a time of 3:54 and senior Fabian Dunn came in 12^th in the shot put after throwing 11.20 meters. For the girls shot put, senior Angela Hayes finished 5^th with a throw of 9.53 meters.

After the meet, Lewin expressed his confidence that the team has matured over the season. "In previous years the sprinters and distance runners were two distinct groups that didn't really interact. This year, though, it seems that our team has really come together and become much more of a group and sometimes that is more important than winning any championship."