By Christopher Hunt
The crowd keep buzzing afterward, the way an audience sounds when they are still trying to accept the moment into reality. That’s how it sounded after the boys 4x200 at the New Balance Games – a buzzing that signified both awe and admiration.
“It’s crazy,” Sheepshead Bay’s John Thomas said after his team won the 4x200 final at the New Balance Track and Field Center.
Akeem Allen (22.7), Thomas (21.5), Ahadazi Richmond (22.2) and Paul Fyffe (22.6) finished in a nation-leading time of 1:29.00. Another Brooklyn squad, Medgar Evers, finished second in 1:29.52, the third-fastest in the country. That makes two of the top three teams in the country all Brooklyn residents. Newburgh, in upstate New York, has the second-fastest time (1:29.26).
Thomas electrified the first turn on the second leg and gave Sheepshead Bay a lead they never submitted. Thomas said his team came in looking to drop a standout time and have been among the best relays in the country this season even after graduating Darryl Bradshaw and Ayo Isijola last year.
“From last year at outdoor states, this was the relay (in the 4x100),” Thomas said. “We won without them there with this same relay. We knew we could keep running fast without them. We’re Sheepshead Bay. We’re one team. We are the Sprint Factory. We’ve just got to keep it going.”
The girls team didn’t have the free run that the boys enjoyed but they managed to maintain their dominance over the girls 4x200. Medgar Evers girls needed to dig out of a fifth-place hole when Rachel Leeke took the baton on the second leg. She cranked down the back straight away and pulled wide on the home stretch and worked her team to third when Nyanka Moise-Joseph snatched the stick for the third leg to finish what Leeke started.
Moise-Joseph ignited spectators as she rolled to the front, taking off like an arrow from a bow and provided some cushion before Kadieca Baird put the race out of reach. The team started they were all disappointed with the time. They won in 1:41.35.
“This was just a fight,” Leeke said. “We wanted to run for time but once we got behind we needed to win.”
Shakele Seaton, Leeke, Moise-Joseph and Baird also won the girls 4x400 in a team-best 3:52.17, which is the second-fastest time in the country this season. Moise-Joseph put the team ahead again on the third leg.
“It’s a drop (in time),” Leeke said. “We PR’ed today but we were thinking, ‘What if we didn’t run the 4x200? What if we didn’t have to run our hearts out earlier? We think we can run a lot faster. We have three girls that can run 55 and one 56. We just all have to do it on the same day.”
Lipari looked to have settled into her pace before Amaral’s pulled up to her shoulder.
“I was shooting for that 4:50,” Lipari said. “But of course I went into that auto-pilot phase when I just tilt my head and sort of go to sleep. Then (Amaral) came up on me. She’s running great. She really helped me.”
Lipari said realized in the morning that it would be her last race at the Armory as a high school athlete. She plans to run the Nike Indoor Nationals in Boston in March and the invitational mile at the Boston Indoor Games next week.
“I was packing my bag and I realized that it was the last time I was going to pack my Rosyln jersey and get on a yellow bus to the Armory,” she said. “Everyone asks me where I’m going to college and I tell them Villanova and then I realize that high school is really ending.”
The move happened so fast no one could respond and no one ever closed the gap. FitzSimons won his debut mile in 4:17.33.
“I was thinking with 600 or 800 I would go,” he said. “The pace felt kind of slow and I felt good. I felt like I had the best speed in the race.”
Reach Christopher Hunt at chunt@armorytrack.com.