OA Track and Field Teams Place Third at Hock Championships

After capturing the Davenport Division championship with wins against Canton last weekend, the Oliver Ames track teams rode the momentum as both the girls and the boys teams came in third place in Saturday’s Hockomock League Championships at the Reggie Lewis Center in Boston.

“I thought it was a very good meet performance overall,” said track coach Mike Darling about the performance. “We really stepped it up today by placing in the top five on both sides and we were able to breeze by the teams in our division [Davenport] and we even beat over half of the division [Rex-Kelly] and a lot of our kids qualified for the states with their performances today. Overall I was really pleased.”

The boys finished behind Mansfield and North Attleboro, while both Mansfield and Franklin finished ahead of the OA girls.

Of the notable performances, both Laura Daley and Emily Grotz captured individual Hockomock titles in the shotput and the 1000-meter events, respectively, while Shannon Hickey finished second in the mile and Michaela Nichols also earned a second place performance in the high jump.

Freshman Jillian McAuliffe also qualified for the states after her performance in the 1000-meter, while Haaski Lazielle finished fifth in the shotput and also qualified. The girls 4x400 relay team finished sixth and will also take part in the states.

Individually, the boys were lead by John Raduazzo’s second place performance in the 300-meter dash, while Sean Gorham finished third in the 1000-meter race. Three runners qualified for the states in the mile as Andrew Kerester took 40 seconds off his personal best time to finish second, while Chris Bilela and Kyle Tagen each finished in third and sixth place, respectively. Dan Moverman (1000-meter, Austin Snyder (300-meter) and Jimmy Hamilton (shotput) also qualified for the states after their performances.

Both the boys 4x200 and the 4x400 teams finished in the top five to also advance to the states. The 4x200 team finished fourth in the event, while the 4x400 came in second.

The track team will be participating in the Class B meets next weekend.

“We’re looking forward to the Class B’s,” he said. “Hopefully we can finish in the top-six and move on to the states [as a team].”

While the Tigers are looking for bigger and better things now that they head into the stretch run, they seem to have their focus on the task in hand.

The track coach remains optimistic.

“We just need to keep training, focusing and hope for the best,” Darling said. “I like what I see from the team and I hope we can keep this going.”

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