GA boys take first Inter-Ac title since 1985

Posted 5/16/16

Approaching the finish line in the 100 meter dash, Penn Charter junior Chris Tucker fights to hold his lead over Germantown Academy sophomore K.J. Cartwright. (Photo by Tom Utescher) by Tom Utescher …

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GA boys take first Inter-Ac title since 1985

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Approaching the finish line in the 100 meter dash, Penn Charter junior Chris Tucker fights to hold his lead over Germantown Academy sophomore K.J. Cartwright. (Photo by Tom Utescher) Approaching the finish line in the 100 meter dash, Penn Charter junior Chris Tucker fights to hold his lead over Germantown Academy sophomore K.J. Cartwright. (Photo by Tom Utescher)

by Tom Utescher

After a championship drought that had lasted for three decades, the Germantown Academy Patriots won the 2016 Inter-Ac League track and field championship last Saturday. Claiming their first title since 1985, the GA boys amassed 123.25 points to win handily over meet host Penn Charter, which scored 88 points to become the runner-up for the third year in a row.

In this, the 130th edition of the venerable gathering, 2015 champ Haverford School and Malvern Prep were not far behind the PC Quakers with 82.25 and 82 points, respectively. Episcopal Academy placed fifth with 41 points and Springside Chestnut Hill was sixth, with a score of 16.5.

In the five field events that were at the top of the schedule, GA finished a respectable third, with 31.25 points to PC’s 45 and Malvern’s 38.

Sophomore Kyle Garland won the high jump and was second in the shot put, and junior Austin Takei repeated as pole vault champion. These results alone accounted for 28 points in the pits.

That meant that GA did not have too much ground to make up when the action moved to the track, where the Patriots blew everyone away.

Here, they netted 92 points, far outdistancing the second-place squad in the footraces, Haverford (57). In the hurdles, the versatile Garland won the 300 meter race and was second in 110 meter event. He ended the day with an individual meet high of 36 points, which made him the 2016 recipient of the league’s George Greenwood Award.

GA received a very helpful contribution of 28.5 points from University of Pennsylvania basketball recruit Devon Goodman, who ruled in the 110 hurdles and took the 400 meter dash with a refuse-to-lose finishing thrust. He came in third in the 300 hurdles, then erased a GA deficit during the anchor leg of the 4 x 400 relay that wrapped up the proceedings.

You expect leans at the line in the sprinting contests, but Patriots junior Owen Ritz did it in the longest race, the 3200 meters, to nip Malvern’s Colin Wills. Earlier, Wills had won the 1600, where Ritz finished third. K.J. Cartwright, a 10th-grader, placed second in the 100 and third in the 200 for the Patriots.

The host Quakers led the way early on with their performance in the field events, and that turned out to be the highlight of their day. Junior Akeem Blake rang up 28 points with victories in the long jump and triple jump and a runner-up finish in the high jump, where he wound up one inch behind (or below) GA’s Garland. Junior Edgar McIlvaine provided PC with second-place points in the pole vault, and senior Sean Foley was fourth in the shot put, helping PC pile up a total of 45 points in the field.

SCH fell way behind the pack by scavenging just one-half of a point in the field events. Most of the Blue Devils’ points came from junior Noah Chandler’s second-place showing in the 800 and senior Hunter Ferry’s efforts in the 400, where he placed fourth.

As the track events got underway, GA needed to begin to make inroads against field-events champ PC. The Patriots gained nine points on the Quakers head-to-head in the 110 hurdles, then lost four in the 100 dash, where Charter junior Chris Tucker triumphed (Tucker would place second in the 200 later on). There was a modest two-point pick-up for Germantown in the 1600 to bring the running totals to 70–63.25, with PC still ahead.

The next two events proved pivotal, as volleys from the Patriots’ big guns knocked the Quakers out of the lead. In the 400 Goodman led the Pats as they outscored Charter 11-2, and a 17-6 gain in the 300 hurdles featured the victory by Garland. After that the tally was 91.25 to 78, and the meet hosts wouldn’t be able to catch up.

Charter had gotten third in the 110 hurdles and fourth in the 300’s thanks to Dylan Burnett, while fellow junior Harper Pollio-Barbee placed fourth in the 1600 and fifth in the 800.

Meet officials hustled to get the 4 x 400 relay teams onto the track near the end of the meet, as the wind picked up and stormy weather threatened from the west. Given the points up for grabs in this final race, GA was so far ahead it could not be caught, and Episcopal and SCH were locked in to fifth and sixth place, respectively.

Two-time Inter-Ac pole vault champ Austin Takei, a Germantown Academy junior, tries to avoid jarring the crossbar off its pins. (Photo by Tom Utescher) Two-time Inter-Ac pole vault champ Austin Takei, a Germantown Academy junior, tries to avoid jarring the crossbar off its pins. (Photo by Tom Utescher)

Malvern, sitting in third at this point, would have to win the relay and Penn Charter would somehow have to fail to collect any points at all (even sixth place netted you one) in order for the Friars to erase a 78-88 shortfall. As it turned out, the Quakers did not score due to a disqualification, but the Friars could not take advantage of this since they finished fourth to pick up just four points.

Instead, Malvern was caught from behind by Haverford, which earned the eight points owing to the runner-up in the relay and inched past the Friars to come in third overall by one-quarter of a point. Episcopal came in between those two in the final race, crossing the line in third.

GA won in 3:32.67 with the quartet of junior Alejandro Gonzalez, senior Eathyn Edwards, junior Gaven Giampolini, and Goodman on the anchor leg.

SCH netted fifth place in 3:44.82 courtesy of Chandler and three seniors, Sam McDowell, Will Concannon, and Ferry.

MEET RESULTS

100 Meters

1. PC Chris Tucker 11.19

2. GA Kasseem Cartwright II 11.44

3. HS Carnel Walker 11.45

4. MP Phil DiTrolio 11.51

5. PC Kieran Smith 11.59

200 Meters

1. HS Carnel Walker 22.30

2. PC Chris Tucker 22.36

3. GA Kasseem Cartwright II 22.82

4. MP Brian Boyle 23.14

5. HS Solomon Dorsey 23.31

400 Meters

1. GA Devon Goodman 50.39 (5th prelims)

2. HS Charlie Scales 50.44

3. HS Solomon Dorsey 51.56

4. SCH Hunter Ferry 51.70

5. PC Connor Sullivan 52.49

800 Meters

1. MP Colin Wills 1:56.83

2. SCH Noah Chandler 1:59.09

3. GA Alejandro Gonzalez 2:00.73

4. EA Matt McDevitt 2:02.65

5. PC Harper Pollio-Barbee 2:03.39

1600 Meters

1. MP Colin Wills 4:26.13

2. EA Jacob Jorgensen 4:29.41

3. GA Owen Ritz 4:32.54

4. PC Harper Pollio-Barbee 4:36.34

5. SCH Will Concannon 4:42.11

3200 Meters

1. GA Owen Ritz 9:58.44

2. MP Colin Wills 9:58.54

3. EA Jacob Jorgensen 10:06.90

4. MP Peter Borger 10:10.2

5. HS Anthony Calvelli 10:16.21

110 Hurdles

1. GA Devon Goodman 14.42

2. GA Kyle Garland 14.82

3. PC Dylan Burnett 15.02

4. HS Sam Lindner 15.07

5. PC Conrad Williams 16.11

300 Hurdles

1. GA Kyle Garland 39.02

2. HS Sam Lindner 39.27

3. GA Devon Goodman 39.87

4. PC Dylan Burnett 40.86

5. PC Conrad Williams 41.05

4 x 400 Relay

1. Germantown Academy 3:32.67

2. Haverford School 3:35.27

3. Episcopal Academy 3:38.05

4. Malvern Prep 3:38.42

5. Springside Chestnut Hill 3:44.82

High Jump

1. GA Kyle Garland 6’7”

2. PC Akeem Blake 6’6”

3. MP Aaron Shirker 6’2”

4. EA Jermaine Rhoden 6’2”

5. PC Patrick Gabor 6’0”

Long Jump

1. PC Akeem Blake 22’0.25”

2. HS Solomon Dorsey 21’5.25”

3. MP Phil DiTrolio 21’3”

4. HS Micah Sims 21’0.25”

5. MP David Bolles 20’9.5”

Triple Jump

1. PC Akeem Blake 43’9.5”

2. HS Solomon Dorsey 41’10.5”

3. MP David Bolles 41’2”

4. HS Micah Sims 41’1”

5. PC Tzion Jones 40’10.5”

Pole Vault

1. GA Austin Takei 12’3”

2. PC Edgar McIlvaine 11’6”

3. MP Sean Oates 10’6”

4. EA Jacob Viscusi 10’6”

5. GA Gaven Giampalmi 10’0”

Shot Put

1. MP Justin Titchnell 46’8.5”

2. GA Kyle Garland 46’3.25”

3. EA Adam Klein 46’1.25”

4. PC Sean Foley 45’11.5”

5. MP Jake Glavin 45’5.75”

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