Blair girls finish third, boys fourth in distance medley relay

Blair excelled in the distance and sprint medley relays at the Howard County/Montgomery County Track Challenge at the Prince Georges County Sports and Learning Center on Dec. 10. Girls' relay teams placed third in distance medley and fourth in the sprint medley, while boy's relay teams finished fourth in the distance medley and seventh in the sprint medley.

All track events were relays completed by teams of four runners. The distances of the relays ranged from a 55 meter dash to 1600 meters, eight laps on the 200 m indoor track. The distance medley, run by Ashlyn Sinclair, Momo Reine, Johanna Gretschel and Halsey Sinclair, is a combination of a 1200m, 400m, 800m and 1600m. Their third place finish against 39 teams clocked in at 13:27.8 minutes. The boys, Emanuel Waktola, Nilan Schnure, Aaron Townsend and Josh Uzzell, finished fourth out of 44 with a time of 11:52.6 minutes.

The sprint medley team of Danielle Peck, Momo Reine, Ashlyn Sinclair and Halsey Sinclair placed fourth. The medley, which consists of 100 m, 200 m, 300m and 400m, was run in 2:36.7 minutes. The boys finished seventh out of 47 teams with Louis Varella, Tommy Dugan, Brandon Hudgins and Aaron Townsend running the event in 2:14.7 minutes.

Though the team did not place as well in the other relays, new coach Heather Amell is pleased with the team's efforts. "I thought we did really well, considering that it was the first meet. I'm very impressed — and we are going to get better," Amell said. She noted that the team will be practicing hard for the subsequent meets, working to improve baton handoffs and times, and in learning how to pace themselves: "Some of them started off too fast and died," Amell said.

Sprinter Tommy Dugan agrees that though the team had a good start to the season, they still need more work. Still, he has high hopes for the rest of the season. "We had a very great first meet. Compared to last year, our team made great strides," Dugan said, "If we improve on handoffs and pick up on times a little bit, our goal is States this year."