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Republished with permission granted by The Washington Newspaper Publishing Co. LLC d/b/a MediaDC. Back to Montgomery Journal articles
Springbrook sprints to boys 4A track title
By ANDRE WILLIAMS
Journal staff writer
WESTMINSTER - The first day's competition last Thursday was long over when Springbrook High School sprinter Sam Brown came up to the press box and asked if the team point standings had been calculated.
A reporter near him asked, "Rough day, huh?"
Brown, like other county sprinters, had come to Westminster to compete in the state track championships, only to find Prince George's County had sent faster athletes. But it didn't bother Brown that the rival county was running away with the sprint events.
His reply was: "All we want is the team title. The rest doesn't matter."
In ninth place after the first day's competition, the Springbrook boys accomplished their goal by accumulating 61 points to win the Class 4A team championship Saturday at Westminster High School.
Prince George's County's Eleanor Roosevet, behind All-American sprinter Jermaine Lewis, collected 56 points to finish second in the 4A boys, followed by Perry Hall with 51 1/2, and Quince Orchard in fourth with 45.
In the 4A girls, Eleanor Roosevelt was levels above the rest of the state, defending its title with 113 points. Paint Branch was the closest county team, posting 25 points in placing sixth.
In the 3A, the Walt Whitman boys made a tremendous run but bowed out in their quest for the state title, finishing third with 56 points. Potomac of Prince George's won the team championship with 77 points, followed by Leonardtown with 59.
Springbrook boys take state 4A title
In the girls 3A, Whitman challenged but ended up fifth with 34 1/2 points. Howard won the team title with 58 points, followed by Bladensburg (53), McDonough (52) and Catonsville (51).
This 45th annual track championships had figured to be a fabulous showcase of athleticism and endurance, with Prince Goerge's County dominating for the most part.
But the Springbrook boys - whose accomplishments included ending a seven-year undefeated dual meet string by Gaithersburg, and winning the county and Region I crowns - came to the states set on reversing matters.
John Mondy, the Blue Devils' confident middle distance runner, was the only team member to win an individual title, pulling away from stiff competition by Quince Orchard's Troy Harry on the final lap to finish the 1,600 meter run in 4:23.1. Harry, who won the 3,200 run, came in at 4:24.8, followed by Springbrook's Kevin Carter in 4:26.0.
"All year we've been kind of doing what's necessary, so we could win as a team," said Carter, who finished second in the 3,200 meters. "We've won all the dual meets."
But nothing would have been complete without winning the state title.
"That was our main goal all year," Spingbrook Coach Charles Torpey said. "They were pretty focused on that. We wanted to win the county and regionals, but we wanted the states. They have come through when they needed to and that's how you win a championship."
In the 800 run, Mondy ran in the fast heat and after striding across the tape in 1:57.7, he appeared to have won his second individual title, only to find out later that Westminster's Brandon DuVal, who ran in the slow heat, had ran 1:55.0 to take first place.
Overall, the county had four individual champions in the 4A, six in the 3A, none in the 2A and one in the 1A. Paint Branch senior Teresa Israel, the dominant runner the past three years in the county, did not leave as a champion.
Israel, who is headed for Seton Hall University in the fall, ran her best time of the season in the 200 final and still finished legs behind Eleanor Roosevelt's Ebony Robinson, who finished in a record time of 23.4, followed by Israel in 24.3. In the 400 final, an event Israel won as a freshman, Israel came around the final turn picking up steam, but Roosevelt freshman Suziann Reid wasn't slowing. Reid crossed the tape in 55.2 to Israel's 56.2.
"I knew it would be hard to win [the 200], a long shot if I could beat [Robinson]," Israel said. "I tried to make her work on some part of the race. I'm a little disappointed because I ran my best time.
"In the 400, if I had of ran what I ran in the relay, I would have won it. I guess I was more scared of how I was going to do, and then when I got tight, it didn't help any."
In the 3A girls 400 final, Seneca Valley's Kisha Cole had the comeback of the meet, overcoming an early deficit to turn it on late to outlean Einstein's Chamille Dennis at the finish line, recording a time of 58.5 to Dennis' 58.6.
Other county athletes to win state titles in the 3A included Walter Johnson's strong-legged hurdler Torrey Simons who won the 100 high hurdles in 15.03 and the 300 intermediate hurdles in 45.1; Whitman's Pascal Dobert who won the 1,600-meter run in an impressive 4:22.2 and the 3,200 in 9:34.8; and Walter Johnson's Balazs Koranyi who felt a little pressure in repeating as 800-meter run champion, finishing in 1:56.1, followed by Dobert in second in 1:57.5.
"I was defending my title from last year, and winning was the most important thing," Koranyi said. "I was hoping to break a school record, but this wasn't the right time or the right place. It was too hard. The track is awfully bad. The pace of the race wasn't what I expected. I expected two or three guys to be up there at 55 seconds [for the] first quarter, but there was nobody. Everybody was sitting back waiting for something to happen, but it never came."
The only other 4A individual titles came from Paint Branch, with Yusuf Byrd winning the discus with a throw of 144-2 and teammate Kelvin Jeter taking the long jump with a leap of 22-3.
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