Milton Track & Field Sets Five School Records

By David Burr

It was a great weekend for Milton Track & Field at the Georgia Tech Coaches Invitational March 15 & 16, as three team and two individual school records were broken.

In the Girls 4x1600m relay, the school record was obliterated by a whopping 31 seconds as the team of Annie Kelly (5:05.9), Maddie Butzer (5:36.5), Riley Burr (5:34.7) & Anne Neenan (5:24.2) ran to a time of 21:41.

Kelly ran one of her fastest 1600's of the year and passed the baton to Butzer, who maintained the lead through her 2nd leg. Freshman Burr ran a personal best for the 1600 and handed off to Neenan in a close battle for the top 3. Neenan ran an inspiring final lap, and set a new personal best by eight seconds, to place Milton in 3rd place overall, their  highest placing at this event in the last seven years.

Milton High will be at Johns Creek High today and Monday for the Fulton County Meet.

Not to be outdone, the Milton Boys quartet of Miles Dayoub (4:21.0-less than a second off the Milton school record of 4:20+), Alex Marshall (4:34.3-a personal best), Justin Thornsberry (4:45.1-season best) & Nate Riech (4:31.3) broke the school record by 18 seconds with their time of 18:14.1, good for 6th place overall.  

On Day 2 of the meet, the Girls 4x800 team of Annie Kelly, Anne Neenan, captain Abbey Jordan, and Amy Ruiz ran to a new school record of 10:02, and the Girls 4x400 ran a season best of 4:17 with the team of Chloe Clark, Bria Belcher, Maddie Butzer, and Devon Artis ran a 4:17, with Artis running an anchor leg timed at an amazing 57.7.

Individual records were also set, as Annie Kelly destroyed one of the best 3200m fields in the state to go wire-to-wire in 10:50 to set a new school record and meet record in the process.

In addition, she was voted Outstanding Track Athlete of the Meet by the coaches of the teams at the meet.

Not to be outdone, the Boys held their own as well as Miles Dayoub won the 2000m Steeplechase and in the process set a new school record.

The 3200m was billed as the race of the meet, and with six runners going sub-9:30, it was not a disappointment. Nate Riech showed he is on his way to being healthy again with a personal best of 9:34, the 2nd best performance in school history.

A strong performance was also turned in by the 4x800 relay team of Zach Bailey, Jammer Howell, Kevin McGorrey & Connor Greisinger, going under 8:35 and finishing in the top 10.