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DCC Championship Recap
By: Kevin Milsted
Saturday, May 07, 2016
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In reality, just over half of the meet records were broken on Saturday at the second annual Down County Consortium Championship Meet, but at times it felt more like 90%. It seemed only the long jump and triple jump records were safe, and that is only because the horizontal jumps had to be canceled due to unseasonably rainy weather in the week leading up to the meet that made the sand pits unusable.

"I think the weather was a little bit cooler this year," said meet director and Einstein High School head track coach Eric DaSilva on the crisp and clear evening. "I believe it was a lot warmer and sunnier last year which would have affected races. And I think you had more athletes that went for it today. The quality of some of the seniors is really strong."

Among the most outstanding athletes of the meet was Einstein senior and Brown University commit Ciciely Davy who broke meet records in the 800m (2:25.59) and 1600m (5:04.78) and also won the 3200m (12:38.66). [All performances are hand-timed depite being reported to the hundreths place]

"We wanted her to run a good 1600 and just get out and go and see what happens. She knew she would be all by herself. It would be like a time trial and she pretty much did that today. It's very hard to run 5:04 all by yourself when she won by 150 meters."

The 3200-meter race was like a training run for Davy in between her two target races in the 1600m and the 800m. In the 800-meter, DaSilva expected Davy to be taxed and pressed by the Blair opponents, so the idea was for her to experience that push.

"For her to be pressed in a race...she needs that going into the county, region, and hopefully the state meet when you start seeing the Beth Taye's of the world...these girls that are nationally ranked girls. I think Ciciely can be there with them. She hasn't quite done it yet but she's been knocking on that door for a while."

Meet records were shattered in almost every track event throughout the meet. Other impressive records included: [All performances are hand-timed depite being reported to the hundreths place]

Irline Cadet of Northwood - 45.51 300m hurdles (and a 57 second split on the 4x4)
Thierry Siewe Yanga of Blair - 1:58.10 800m (and a 49 second split on the 4x4)
Andree' DiReumante of Northwood - 51.18 in the 400m (and a 21.90 victory in the 200m)
Grace Olawuni of Blair - 16.58 in the 100m hurdles (despite running the race twice due to hurdle setup mishap)

Shortly after the team champions were announced, DaSilva touched on each student's ability to choose the high school within the consortium that is right for them and how that makes this particular meet special.

"Kids take pride in their choices," DaSilva said. "It's important to have pride in your school. There are so many things that go on in down county schools that don't look good and the publicity isn't great. And yet here is something where the kids can be successful. It's a chance to compete and make their school look good and that matters. Kids have pride."

Blair boys and Einstein girls each won the meet for the second consecutive year. In a scoring mishap, the Blair girls were mistakenly announced the champions at the conclusion of the meet before final scores were completely and correctly tabulated. Einstein defeated the Blair girls 162 to 161.




Participation among feeder elementary and middle schools within the consortium system dwindled to five kids in this year's version of the meet. DaSilva took full responsibility and vowed to do better in promoting the meet to elementary and middle schools in the future.

"I take full blame for the lack of participation there. Absolutely that is something we want to grow. It gets buy-in to the different high schools. It's a way for parents who may have misconceptions about the high schools to see there are a lot of good things that go on in the high schools that maybe they don't necessarily hear about but here they are experiencing it and that's a really good thing."






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