Note: This story has been updated at 11:30 am on 5/19/22 to reflect input from Athletic Director Mike McGrath and Outdoor Track Head Coach John Monz.

It was quite an afternoon yesterday at Proctor Field. Athletes, coaches and parents competed and/or cheered as the best of the Dual County League (Middlesex and Suffolk Counties) ran and jumped and threw and vaulted in the varsity track meet. At 8:30 pm, after a 3 pm start, there was still a vault-off between four pole jump finalists, three of whom were seniors from Weston.

In the end, Weston came home (oh wait, we were home) as the DCL small-school Foley Division Champions, both the Boys and the Girls. As a review of prior Owl stories, Weston is the smallest school in the league with 650 students, followed by Wayland and Bedford (both around 830), with Boston Latin and Waltham already more medium than small if you ask for my editorial comment which you always do, right? The other six schools in DCL are the usual hyphenated suspects of A-B, C-C, L-S, plus Newton South, Cambridge Rindge and Westford Academy.

Reached for comment this morning, Athletic Director Mike McGrath explained the Foley (small-school) and Thorpe (large-school) split: ” Last year we won both the boys and girls divisions of this meet. However, up until last year it was scored as one meet with just one boys and one girls champion and we had not won one of those meets in the last 20 years.

“When I took over outdoor track in the DCL (each AD is responsible for a few sports to oversee and basically run – mine are outdoor track and golf) and we decided to host the championships, John Monz and I decided we would score the meet for both divisions to make things a little more fair (going against schools with 2k students is difficult when we only have 640),” said McGrath.

But to cut to the chase, the Wildcats blew away the small-school competition. Both Boys and Girls teams scored 200 points or more in the small-school Foley rankings:

But here’s the kicker–even if little Weston had been put up against the hyphens and other giants, Weston Girls would have won the entire DCL, and Weston Boys would have come in third place. That is prettty amazing. We are small but we are mighty. Check it out!

Combined DCL results (small and large school):

In case anyone cares, Westford Academy brought home the Girls large-school Thorpe Division, and A-B pulled out a slight edge (it came down to the pole vault I believe), to win the Boys large-school Thorpe Division.

In other editorial comment, the pole vault at the end was adrenaline-inducing, under the lights and with the finalist schools all gathered around. Four pole vaulters, one from A-B and three from Weston took vault after vault. There is something about this event that is just completely thrilling with the athletes running with a long pole, placing it and then launching up and over the bar/rope. In the end, Weston came home with the top three in the Foley Division. Field Kasrel gets a solo shout-out for vaulting 13 feet, and being the overall DCL champion. Amazing.

Ah yes, so the records: (from a John Monz email):

There were 3 records broken or tied last night–two school records and one freshman school record:

The 4 x 400 relay of Tally Zeller (59.8), Kaitlin Ewald (61.2 – all of the bad pass time loss is on her split), Sloan Hinton (60.4), and Julie Hohenberg (59.3) ran 4:00.93, breaking the school record of 4:01.57 set by the 1998 team of K. C. Czarnowski, Kate Flaherty, Annica White, and Abby Kussell. That record stood for 24 years!

Field Kasrel’s dramatic clearance of 13’0″ on his final attempt in the pole vault tied the school record originally set by Nick Green way back in 1978! That’s a 44-year old record!

Alessandra Gavris broke the freshman record in the 1 mile with her time of 5:09.56. The record was previously held by Jillian Howard, with a 5:11.76 set in the freshman race at New Balance Nationals in 2014. 

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Also worth noting is the dedicated, supportive and extraordinary group of Track coaches, as well as the volunteers who helped out. And a cameo of Mr. Valle announcing. In addition, one most note that Weston’s athletic trainer Rizz and Athletic Director McGrather were as usual 100% present with their dueling Gators. Thanks for all you do.

Next up for Track is the junior varsity DCL meet Friday May 20 at Concord-Carlisle, and then there’s something in Norwell or Norwood this weekend (yeah, I’m good at this geography) and then for a select few it’s States, and there are at least nine athletes qualified for nationals.

Go ‘cats!