Runner, swimmers, wrestlers take titles
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Two swimmers, a Northampton runner and three wrestlers all brought state titles back to Hampshire County over the weekend.
Meriza Werenski, a freshman at Holyoke Catholic, wrapped up her awe-inspiring varsity debut swimming season with a pair of state championships at the Division 2 meet at Harvard University on Sunday and earned All-American status.
Quianna Diaz-Patterson, a junior swimmer at Amherst Regional, won the 100-yard breaststroke in Division 1, also Sunday at Harvard.
Northampton senior track standout Natalia Paine won her second straight 600-meter title at the Division 3 championships Sunday at the Reggie Lewis Track and Athletic Center in Boston on Sunday, and took another first as part of the 4-by-400-meter relay team which set a school and meet record.
In wrestling, Mack Ransford of Granby and Alex Dumais and Troy Johnson of South Hadley each took home state titles on Saturday.
Division 2 girls swimming
Werenski earned automatic All-American status in winning the 200-yard individual medley with a time of 2:07.70, more than half a second better than the All-American qualifying time of 2:05.37.
"She had gone 2:05.8 at western Mass., so she was close to it," Holyoke Catholic coach Ryan Yucka said. "We knew she would make it. It was just a matter of focusing on another week of swimming fast.
Werenski's second first-place performance came in the 100 breaststroke, which she finished with a time of 1:05.29, good for All-American consideration. The automatic All-American time is 1:05.03.
"She's the kind of kid who just gets ready for big meets, no matter what we're doing in the pool," Yucka said of her performance. "Last week, she was doing pretty much normal practices, but at the end of every practice we'd talk about what her goals were to keep her in the mind-set of going fast. It's pretty easy to work with her on that."
Northampton, meanwhile, had three second-place finishes in the Division 2 state meet, including a school record in the 200 medley relay.
The relay team of Alex Whiting, Johanna Fleming, Molly Driscoll and Rachel Boynton finished with a time of 1:52.51, topping its own school-best finish of 1:53.50.
Belchertown, meanwhile, had three school records broken at the Division 2 meet.
Freshman Ashley Chumbley knocked 1997 graduate Leslie Beauchamp from the record books in two events.
She swam the 50-yard freestyle in 25.94 seconds, besting the old mark of 26.35 and finished the 100-yard freestyle in 56.04, beating the prior record of 56.87.
Sophomore Madison Granger also had a new Orioles record in the 100-yard backstroke. She finished with a time of 1:03.77, just 0.22 seconds better than her own school record set at the previous week's western Massachusetts meet.
Division 1 girls swimming
When Diaz-Patterson first saw the seed times for the 100-yard breaststroke, she knew it was going to be a tight race.
The Amherst Regional junior was No. 4 on the psych sheet going into Sunday's state Division 1 championship meet, but the top five swimmers were all within one second of each other.
"When I found out the seedings, I knew that no matter what happened, I had to keep pushing the entire race if I wanted to be number one," Diaz-Patterson said.
The race was extremely close and Diaz-Patterson was second at the 50-yard mark.
"She really turned it on," coach Keith McFarland said. "It was her fastest (final 50) of the year."
Diaz-Patterson said, "I saw how close it was (at the 50) and I just pushed as hard as I could. I gave it everything I could."
The result was a new personal best, dropping her time at the western Massachusetts meet of 1:09.85 by nearly two seconds.
Division 3 indoor track
The Northampton girls and boys indoor track teams had a successful Sunday at the Reggie Lewis Center, as several athletes from each squad qualified to compete in the all-state championships on Friday.
It was an especially good night for Paine, who won the 600-meter race for the second straight year with a time of 1:38.58 and ran the last leg of the 4-by-400 meter relay winning team.
Joining her on the relay were Phoebe Hopkins, Mia Toffoli and Emma Larson, who finished with a time of 4:02.12, good for both a school and meet record.
Paine and the relay team will both be No. 1 seeds at the all-state meet.
"This is the first time this teams run together," Northampton coach Nate Kraft said of the relay. "Phoebe set the tone right away, saying we're not going to mess around here. Mia did a great job running the second fastest split on the relay, and put us in the position for Natalia to win. Natalia took the lead with a little over a lap to go, and really put the race away from there. She found another gear with about 100 meters."
The Northampton girls finished fourth as a team, with 28 total points in the meet. Others qualifying for the all-state championships are Julia Sullivan, who set a school record in the mile with her fourth-place time of 5:15:87, and Charlotte Lellman, who finished fourth in the two-mile run with a time of 11:43:91. Senior Molly Brooks also qualified for Northampton in the shot put, after she finished in eighth place.
Alex Sullivan led the Northampton boys, setting a personal record in the 1,000-meter run with a fifth-place time of 2:39:65. Sullivan qualified for the all-state championships, along with Darius Fuentes, Michael Mailloux, and Ian Lutz.
Fuentes finished fourth in the 55 meter dash with a time of 6:75. Mailloux finished fifth in the 600 meter run with a time of 1:24:65. Lutz took third in the two-mile run with a time of 9:50:41. As a team, the Northampton boys finished 12th overall in the meet.
Division 3 wrestling
After cruising in his first two matches in the 130-pound weight class by a combined score of 21-0, Ransford had two tight matches go down to the wire.
"For some reason, all my matches that are close come out with me winning," Ransford said.
First, he came back from a 4-2 deficit to beat Brendon Perry of Wakefield, 7-4.
Then, Ransford broke a 2-2 tie with a takedown of Shawn Adams of Wilmington with 12 seconds left to take the Division 3 state championship.
"It was a well-calculated match on Mack's part. He really took control of his matches all weekend," said Granby coach Joe Denette, "Mack finally realized that he can wrestle with anyone. If he can take what he learned this weekend and roll it into next weekend he'll be fine."
Ransford, a two-time western Massachusetts champion who advanced to the all-state wrestling championships next weekend for the second straight year, is Granby's first wrestling state champion in 29 years. He will be a No. 2 seed in next weekend's tournament.
Meanwhile, Dumais got off to an excellent start Friday in the 189-pound weight class, as he pinned Jeff Storry of Tyngsboro at the 1:50 mark. Dumais followed up Friday's performance in the semifinals on Saturday, as he defeated Brian Harrington of Rockland 5-1.
He then earned an 8-2 decision over Nick Boudreau of Dedham to take the title.
"I heard the crowd cheering in the final seconds of the match, and I just thought to myself, #I have this,' " said Dumais.
This is the first time that Dumais, a junior, qualified for the all-state championships.
"It's pretty amazing, indescribable really," Dumais said. "Just being able to be there was an honor."
Johnson had just as much success as his teammate, advancing through the quarterfinal and semifinal rounds after both of his opponents had to leave the match due to knee and ankle injuries, giving Johnson the victories by default. Johnson had a solid lead on both of his opponents before their injuries.
In the final round against Matt Richberg of Dedham, Johnson came up big in the final seconds, pinning Richberg with nine seconds left in regularion to take the heavyweight championship.
"Troy is a great athlete and a great kid. I'm just really proud of how he came back to win in the final round," South Hadley coach Kevin McNeill said.
However, Johnson gave all the credit to his coach, saying conditioning was the biggest factor in his last-second victory.
"I couldn't have done this if it wasn't for the amount of work our coach puts us through during the week," Johnson said.
Both Dumais and Johnson will be No. 3 seeds in their respective 18-athlete brackets for the all-state championships in Salem.
