Successful southern sojourn for GFS track

Posted 4/4/16

The Germantown Friends contingent running down in Williamsburg last weekend included the girls 4 x 400 team of (from left) Alice Wistar, Helen Ruger, Eliza MacNeal, and Taryn Barrett. by Tom Utescher …

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Successful southern sojourn for GFS track

Posted

The Germantown Friends contingent running down in Williamsburg last weekend included the girls 4 x 400 team of (from left) Alice Wistar, Helen Ruger, Eliza MacNeal, and Taryn Barrett. The Germantown Friends contingent running down in Williamsburg last weekend included the girls 4 x 400 team of (from left) Alice Wistar, Helen Ruger, Eliza MacNeal, and Taryn Barrett.

by Tom Utescher

In what is becoming a spring break tradition, runners from Germantown Friends School journeyed down to Williamsburg, Va. to race in the College of William & Mary’s Colonial Relays, and last weekend’s trip yielded some impressive results.

The Tiger saw both their boys and girls win the distance medley relay, a race that includes four legs of 1200, 400, 800 and 1600 meters.

The GFS boys won in a time of 10 minutes, 24.38 seconds with a quartet composed of (in race order) Grayson Hepp, Norwood Fontbonne Academy grad Eli Schwemler, Jonnie Plass, and Nick Dahl. All are juniors except Hepp, a senior.

There were two other Philly area schools with high placings; La Salle High School was second in 10:28.81, and St. Joseph’s Prep was fourth in 10:55.17, just behind Long Island’s St. Anthony’s High School.

For the girls, senior Alice Wistar led off and was followed by junior Eliza MacNeal, sophomore Helen Ruger, and junior Griffin Kaulbach.

Their time of 12:52.11 allowed them to win by 20 seconds over another Keystone State foursome from Upper Dublin High School. Virginia’s Norfolk Academy was another half-minute behind in third place.

Germantown took second place in the boys’ 4 x 800 behind St. Anthony’s, 7:54.97 to 7:57.09, with a Virginia quartet from Mountain View High School third in 8:01.24. Here the Tigers’ race order was Plass, Hepp, sophomore Colin Riley, and Dahl.

Racing individually for GFS in the girls’ 3000 meter run, Wistar placed fifth (10:40.67) and Kaulbach was seventh (10:45.37).

Sophomore twins Portia and Teasha McKoy also competed for the Tigers in individual events. Portia placed sixth in the 100 meter dash in 12.96 seconds, and also came in 10th in the long jump, traveling 15’4.75”. In addition to finishing sixth in the 100 meter hurdles (17.15), Teasha McKoy was seventh in the 200 meters in 26.49 seconds, while her 10th-grade classmate, Taryn Barrett, was eighth in that event in 26.58.

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