Girls track: Northampton’s depth outweighs Amherst Regional

By HENRY BRECHTER

For the Gazette

Published: 04-24-2017 10:51 PM

NORTHAMPTON — The Northampton girls track & field team placed first in 12 of 15 events on Monday afternoon, defeating Amherst Regional 89-56 for its third straight win to start the season.

“Basically, the girls just stepped up,” Northampton coach Ryan Davis said. “We have a very small squad, 26 on the roster at this point, and not everyone was able to compete today. Everyone had to do three to four events in order to take such a big win, and they all stepped up.”

Gretchen Saveson placed first in three events. She won the long jump at 15 feet, 3½ inch, the 400-meter hurdles in 1 minutes, 11.5 seconds and the 400 in 1:03.4.

The Blue Devils won the 4x100 and 4x400 relays.

Sam Ginsburg, Devon Peterson, Sophie Miller and Emma Harder won the 4x100 in 54.0 seconds, while Mary Yount, Maddie Sellers, Maddie Etzel and Saveson took the 4x400 in 4:47.2.

Scarlet Sands Bliss also had a big day after fully recovering from an injury. She placed first in the 800 and high jump.

“I feel really good,” Sands Bliss said. “It’s always hard not performing at your best right from the start, but it was really nice to get back on my feet.”

She won the 800 in 2:28.4 and the high jump in 5 feet.

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“I always love high jump, and it’s really nice to do well in that because it’s sort of the one I get the least practice with during practice because we’re mostly doing workouts and focusing on the track,” Sands Bliss said “But it felt really good to do well in that today.”

The Hurricanes placed first in five events.

“We just didn’t have enough people,” Amherst coach Chris Gould said. “It’s like a Jenga game. You take a couple of those pieces out, and it all comes crashing down. We were without Sidilene Pereira da Veiga, and that hurts us in a bunch of different ways. ... I’m satisfied with our effort, I think we just need to get everyone together, and I want all of our athletes to feel a little bit more urgency when it comes to really laying it on the line.”

Claire Basler-Chang placed first in the javelin with a toss of 80-11, while Ingrid Salvador won the pole vault at 5-6.

Sophia Jacobs-Townsley placed first in the mile with a time of 5:27.3.

Shihanna Maradiaga won the discus (74-8), while Kayla Krumrey won the triple jump (28-3¼).

Isabela Shepard placed second in the long jump with a leap of 14-2¾.

Amina Torres finished second in the 100 dash at 13.6 and the 200 at 28.9.

“Isabella Shepard came out and ran three events, one after the other,” Gould said. “Without the guys in between, it really makes it hard to come back like that. ... Sophia Jacobs-Townsley also ran really well, she felt a little like her IT band wasn’t feeling well, but I thought she ran great.”

On May 1, Amherst faces East Longmeadow, while Northampton has Minnechaug.

“We’re consistently a good running team, but we have to work on some field events for sure if we want to compete with bigger teams like Minnechaug,” Davis said. “Honestly, today was such a good day, that it’ll be hard to top that.”

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