Marblehead Boys' Track Shocks Peabody

Marblehead High School's boys' track team handed Peabody High their first NEC loss in four years with a stunning 75-61 victory Tuesday afternoon.

Boys' Track Team Results:

Josh Beloff

The following is a message from Marblehead's boys' track coach, Brian Crowley:

This was a huge win for us. It’s the first time Peabody has lost in the Northeastern Conference since coming over from the GBL four years ago. They have a large, very strong program and have always been the ones to aim for.

They’ve frustrated us time and time again and we wondered if anyone would ever be able to beat them. But today our guys pulled out all the stops. They earned this win with eight personal bests and seven new state qualifying performances, bringing our total of state qualifiers for the season thus far to 13. 

We led from the start and I couldn’t help but feel hopeful – it’s a position we’re not accustomed to being in when running against Peabody. But then Peabody pulled ahead with one-two finishes in both the 100 meter and mile and I thought for a minute that they might pull away. But then we answered with a sweep of the discus to regain the lead and never looked back.

After a frustrating start against Saugus last week, Nolan Raimo was exceptional today scoring four first places finishes in the triple jump, long jump, 110 hurdles and 200m.

And I can’t say enough about the performances being turned in by our throwers.  While we only took a second place in the shot put today (Jake Morris with a new personal best of 44’ 2”) all four of our throwers (Mike Brenan, Jake Morris, Josh Freedland, and Cristian Flores) were over 40 feet. Danny Plunkett also led Jake Morris and Joel Katz in a sweep of the discus.

I can’t tell you how excited we are about our throwers this year.  It’s the hardest working and most talented group we’ve had in twelve years. Despite all our successes over the years this is an area where we have traditionally left points on the field but these guys are making things happen every meet.

James Wigglesworth looked better than he has ever looked on the track, turning in a state qualifying performance of 10:18.7 to take second place.

One of the more memorable performances of the day was the effort turned in by Mike Harper in the 800 meter. We needed first and second to secure the win. Chris Neumann took care of first with a personal best performance and Mike Harper provided second.

He was in third place with less than 100 meters to go and pushed through the finish line on pure heart to capture both second place and the points we needed to put us over the top.