LEX GIRLS DOMINATE THE BEST IN MASSACHUSETTS AND WIN DIVISION 1 STATE TITLE
Meet Information
MIAA Division 1 Championships
February 12, 2025
Reggie Lewis Track & Field Center - Boston, MA
RESULTS
BOSTON, MA - The last time the Lexington High School girls took home a Division 1 State Championship was 2013. Back then, sprints coach Alex Cox was in her freshman year competing for The Minutemen, the current class of 2025 was just entering kindergarten, and Mary Cain was a 16-year old high school distance running sensation, who had just broken the national high school record in the 1500m set by Massachusetts' own Lynn Jennings. Over the last decade, the LHS girls have struggled to compete at the state level, despite consistently being one of the best teams in the Middlesex League. That changed on Wednesday in Boston, however. The Minutemen came into the Reggie Lewis Center with the most projected points based on the entries and dominated the meet from start to finish. When the dust settled, Lexington's girls were crowned champions with 84.87 points, with Newton North coming in a distant second with 60.74. On the boys' side, The Minutemen did not have their best day across the board. Despite this, they scrapped and clawed their way to the finish and still managed to earn a tie with Brockton for third overall in the team competition with 40 points. Lowell earned the boys' title with 69 points, while Newton North was runner-up again with 54.
The meet got off to a great start for The Minutemen. Due to the schedule of events, junior Aubrey Deardorf, who competes in the 55m Dash, has been LHS's tone setter all year. She got the scoring started for her team by delivering eight points big points with a runner-up finish in a time of 7.29 seconds. From there, Lexington's Class of 2028 began to give the state a glimpse of what they would have to deal with over the next four years. In the Mile, freshmen Amelia Whorton and Janie Conrad toed the line with a field that included the reigning Cross Country State Champion, Needham's Greta Hammer. Early on, it was Westford Academy's Emily Wedlake, who led the Ghosts to the state title over Lexington this fall, that set the pace. Whorton and Conrad laid back from the leaders at the beginning of the race and moved up through the field over the middle laps. With just over 400m to go Hammer moved to the front, but could not shake Whorton from her shoulder. As they passed the bell to begin the final lap, Whorton moved into position and laid down the hammer with a furious kick down the backstretch. She crossed the line with a winning time of 4:59.56, and was followed by Conrad (5:04.60) who earned fourth place. With that, The Minutemen picked up 15 points and took a lead they would never relinquish. Meanwhile, in the Shot Put circle, junior Ainsley Cuthbertson was dropping bombs. Her second throw of the 8-pound ball landed at 38'0.50". That mark ended up being good enough for silver, but she was still chasing Haverhill's Madeline Goncalves for the lead going into the final round. There, Cuthbertson unleashed a huge throw of 39'7.75", which was a foot farther than her own school record mark. Despite the tremendous throw, it was not enough to overtake Goncalves. Regardless, Cuthbertson delivered another eight points for her team. Back on the track, Whorton was lined up for the 1000m along with another member of the Class of '28, Mackenzie Callahan. While Haverhill's Lauren Downer took the race from wire-to-wire, Whorton was able to manage a third place finish with a time of 2:55.88. Callahan used a strong finishing kick to cross the line fifth overall in 3:03.23. Another LHS freshman, Natalie Bielat, delivered a huge personal best of 3:10.60 from the unseeded section. Her time held up through the seeded heat and placed her eighth overall, which gave her team one point, making a total of 11 from the 1000m crew. Back on the infield Deardorf, who is notorious for hitting a big jump on her first attempt, was unable to deliver her usual best during the prelims. She did enough to make finals, but truly saved her best for last. On her sixth and final jump, she dug deep and flew out 18'3.75" into the sand - improving her own LHS record - to clinch bronze and six more points for the team.
It was the 2 Mile proved to be pivotal for LHS on Wednesday. Going into the race, the Lex girls held a 12-point lead over Newton North. The Minutemen had three athletes in the seeded section, while the Tigers had four of their own. Conrad appeared to be in total control for Lexington as she was up in the front pack early on. Meanwhile, sophomore Callie Glenn and junior Meghan Caldera were running near the back of the 18-person pack. However, as the weight of the fast pace began to drag the field down, Glenn and Caldera surged up to the front. As the race approached the final 800m, Conrad had taken control, and moved into the lead. Glenn had also made huge moves and pushed all the way up into second place with only her teammate ahead of her. And, to cap it all off, Caldera was locked in a pack of five runners vying for points. In the end, it was the LHS freshman who crossed the line first with a time of 11:18.17. Glenn was next in a time of 11:21.71 that earned her the silver medal. Caldera (11:36.41) battled her way to a sixth place finish, with a personal best by 24 seconds. As none of Newton North's girls managed to place in the event, the Lex girls' sensational efforts earned the team 21 points and slammed the door shut on any realistic attempt to take the team title from them. After the 2 Mile, sophomore Marissa Hao, junior Anika Steinbrecher, sophomore Emily Hoefkens, and junior Felice Haverly combined to place fifth in the 4x200m Relay with a time of 1:48.41, which made it official that the Lex girls would walk away as the Division 1 State Champions!
Things were not off to a stellar start for the LHS boys early on. However, the hallmark of this team was their ability to fight through adversity and pick each other up when they needed it. That was on full display Wednesday night. Senior captain Ryan Zhang (7.74) and junior captain Simon Tandeih (7.82) ended up just sixth and eighth respectively in the 55m Hurdles, which earned the team four points. In the 600m, senior Nathan Cunningham ran the best race of his career to date. He won the unseeded section in a time of 1:23.93. That performance held up through the seeded heat to place fifth overall. The 1000m featured senior Zach Barry and Max Zhang, who were seeded first and second, and projected for 18 points in the event. However, the race - as all great championship middle distance races do - turned into a brutally physical sit-and-kick affair. Barry (2:36.13) and Zhang (2:37.70) fought hard but only managed six points as they finished fifth and seventh respectively. At that point, things looked bleak for The Minutemen. However, sophomore Patrick Noonan gave his team hope with his performance in the 2 Mile. Noonan, who was not projected to score, delivered a gutsy performance over the 16-lap race, and ran a season best of nearly 10 seconds to cross the line in sixth place with a time of 9:33.06. LHS got another lift from its 4x200m Relay of sophomores Cayden Chambers and Luis Linares Gutierrez, senior Tim George, and Tandeih. The relay ran a season best 1:32.60 to earn another three points with a sixth place finish. After the 4x8 of senior James Joseph, Cunningham, Max Zhang, and Barry placed fifth in 8:16.88, The Minutemen were still way down in the standings until a massive swing came from the Long Jump. Both Tandeih and junior Cleavon Manor Jr. delivered their best jumps of the competition in the final round. Manor Jr. flew out to 21'3.50", which earned him fifth place. Meanwhile, Tandeih's leap of 21'7.75" won him the event by just three-quarters-of-an-inch. The 14 points earned by LHS's juniors vaulted their team up the leader board into a tie for fourth place with B.C. High, and just two points behind Brockton for third. With just one event to go, The Minutemen called on sophomore Sheryas Hanchinamani, freshman Matteo Sanchez de Rojas, Cunningham, and Joseph to try and eek out some points from the unseeded heat. Hanchinamani got things off to a good start with a 53.4 split and the freshman followed it up with a 53.5 split of his own to keep his team in contention. Cunningham blazed around the track and put LHS in second, ahead of B.C. High, with a 52.5 split before handing off to Joseph. On his third race of the night, Joseph gave everything he had to hold off the hard charge of B.C. High's Joey McNeil. With a lean at the line, Joseph managed to hold onto second place in the heat by eight-hundredths-of-a-second with a final time of 3:33.91. That mark had LHS sitting in third, with the five teams still to race in the seeded section, including Brockton. As the race unfolded, it was clear that four teams would beat Lexington's mark. However, Brockton fell to the back of the pack, and as their anchor leg let off the gas in the final strides of the race, he crossed the line in 3:34.06, which meant no points for his team and gave The Minutemen the two points they needed to tie them for third place overall.
Other Highlights for the Girls
Final Girls Team Scores (Top 10)
1. Lexington - 84.87
2. Newton North - 60.74
3. Natick - 51
4. Needham - 32
5. Central Catholic - 30
6. Haverhill - 25.87
6. Methuen - 25.87
8. Weymouth - 23
9. Wachusett - 22.74
10. Brookline - 18
Other Highlights for the Boys
Final Boys Team Scores (Top 10)
1. Lowell - 69
2. Newton North - 54
3. Lexington - 40
3. Brockton - 40
5. B.C. High - 39
6. Brookline - 36
7. St. John's Prep - 31
8. Lincoln-Sudbury - 28
9. Acton-Boxborough - 21
9. Andover - 21
Up Next
LHS's Bomb Squad will be back at Reggie Lewis on Wednesday, February 19th to compete at the Massachusetts Scholastic Weight Throw Championships. The meet begins at 10:30am.
MIAA Division 1 Championships
February 12, 2025
Reggie Lewis Track & Field Center - Boston, MA
RESULTS
BOSTON, MA - The last time the Lexington High School girls took home a Division 1 State Championship was 2013. Back then, sprints coach Alex Cox was in her freshman year competing for The Minutemen, the current class of 2025 was just entering kindergarten, and Mary Cain was a 16-year old high school distance running sensation, who had just broken the national high school record in the 1500m set by Massachusetts' own Lynn Jennings. Over the last decade, the LHS girls have struggled to compete at the state level, despite consistently being one of the best teams in the Middlesex League. That changed on Wednesday in Boston, however. The Minutemen came into the Reggie Lewis Center with the most projected points based on the entries and dominated the meet from start to finish. When the dust settled, Lexington's girls were crowned champions with 84.87 points, with Newton North coming in a distant second with 60.74. On the boys' side, The Minutemen did not have their best day across the board. Despite this, they scrapped and clawed their way to the finish and still managed to earn a tie with Brockton for third overall in the team competition with 40 points. Lowell earned the boys' title with 69 points, while Newton North was runner-up again with 54.
The meet got off to a great start for The Minutemen. Due to the schedule of events, junior Aubrey Deardorf, who competes in the 55m Dash, has been LHS's tone setter all year. She got the scoring started for her team by delivering eight points big points with a runner-up finish in a time of 7.29 seconds. From there, Lexington's Class of 2028 began to give the state a glimpse of what they would have to deal with over the next four years. In the Mile, freshmen Amelia Whorton and Janie Conrad toed the line with a field that included the reigning Cross Country State Champion, Needham's Greta Hammer. Early on, it was Westford Academy's Emily Wedlake, who led the Ghosts to the state title over Lexington this fall, that set the pace. Whorton and Conrad laid back from the leaders at the beginning of the race and moved up through the field over the middle laps. With just over 400m to go Hammer moved to the front, but could not shake Whorton from her shoulder. As they passed the bell to begin the final lap, Whorton moved into position and laid down the hammer with a furious kick down the backstretch. She crossed the line with a winning time of 4:59.56, and was followed by Conrad (5:04.60) who earned fourth place. With that, The Minutemen picked up 15 points and took a lead they would never relinquish. Meanwhile, in the Shot Put circle, junior Ainsley Cuthbertson was dropping bombs. Her second throw of the 8-pound ball landed at 38'0.50". That mark ended up being good enough for silver, but she was still chasing Haverhill's Madeline Goncalves for the lead going into the final round. There, Cuthbertson unleashed a huge throw of 39'7.75", which was a foot farther than her own school record mark. Despite the tremendous throw, it was not enough to overtake Goncalves. Regardless, Cuthbertson delivered another eight points for her team. Back on the track, Whorton was lined up for the 1000m along with another member of the Class of '28, Mackenzie Callahan. While Haverhill's Lauren Downer took the race from wire-to-wire, Whorton was able to manage a third place finish with a time of 2:55.88. Callahan used a strong finishing kick to cross the line fifth overall in 3:03.23. Another LHS freshman, Natalie Bielat, delivered a huge personal best of 3:10.60 from the unseeded section. Her time held up through the seeded heat and placed her eighth overall, which gave her team one point, making a total of 11 from the 1000m crew. Back on the infield Deardorf, who is notorious for hitting a big jump on her first attempt, was unable to deliver her usual best during the prelims. She did enough to make finals, but truly saved her best for last. On her sixth and final jump, she dug deep and flew out 18'3.75" into the sand - improving her own LHS record - to clinch bronze and six more points for the team.
It was the 2 Mile proved to be pivotal for LHS on Wednesday. Going into the race, the Lex girls held a 12-point lead over Newton North. The Minutemen had three athletes in the seeded section, while the Tigers had four of their own. Conrad appeared to be in total control for Lexington as she was up in the front pack early on. Meanwhile, sophomore Callie Glenn and junior Meghan Caldera were running near the back of the 18-person pack. However, as the weight of the fast pace began to drag the field down, Glenn and Caldera surged up to the front. As the race approached the final 800m, Conrad had taken control, and moved into the lead. Glenn had also made huge moves and pushed all the way up into second place with only her teammate ahead of her. And, to cap it all off, Caldera was locked in a pack of five runners vying for points. In the end, it was the LHS freshman who crossed the line first with a time of 11:18.17. Glenn was next in a time of 11:21.71 that earned her the silver medal. Caldera (11:36.41) battled her way to a sixth place finish, with a personal best by 24 seconds. As none of Newton North's girls managed to place in the event, the Lex girls' sensational efforts earned the team 21 points and slammed the door shut on any realistic attempt to take the team title from them. After the 2 Mile, sophomore Marissa Hao, junior Anika Steinbrecher, sophomore Emily Hoefkens, and junior Felice Haverly combined to place fifth in the 4x200m Relay with a time of 1:48.41, which made it official that the Lex girls would walk away as the Division 1 State Champions!
Things were not off to a stellar start for the LHS boys early on. However, the hallmark of this team was their ability to fight through adversity and pick each other up when they needed it. That was on full display Wednesday night. Senior captain Ryan Zhang (7.74) and junior captain Simon Tandeih (7.82) ended up just sixth and eighth respectively in the 55m Hurdles, which earned the team four points. In the 600m, senior Nathan Cunningham ran the best race of his career to date. He won the unseeded section in a time of 1:23.93. That performance held up through the seeded heat to place fifth overall. The 1000m featured senior Zach Barry and Max Zhang, who were seeded first and second, and projected for 18 points in the event. However, the race - as all great championship middle distance races do - turned into a brutally physical sit-and-kick affair. Barry (2:36.13) and Zhang (2:37.70) fought hard but only managed six points as they finished fifth and seventh respectively. At that point, things looked bleak for The Minutemen. However, sophomore Patrick Noonan gave his team hope with his performance in the 2 Mile. Noonan, who was not projected to score, delivered a gutsy performance over the 16-lap race, and ran a season best of nearly 10 seconds to cross the line in sixth place with a time of 9:33.06. LHS got another lift from its 4x200m Relay of sophomores Cayden Chambers and Luis Linares Gutierrez, senior Tim George, and Tandeih. The relay ran a season best 1:32.60 to earn another three points with a sixth place finish. After the 4x8 of senior James Joseph, Cunningham, Max Zhang, and Barry placed fifth in 8:16.88, The Minutemen were still way down in the standings until a massive swing came from the Long Jump. Both Tandeih and junior Cleavon Manor Jr. delivered their best jumps of the competition in the final round. Manor Jr. flew out to 21'3.50", which earned him fifth place. Meanwhile, Tandeih's leap of 21'7.75" won him the event by just three-quarters-of-an-inch. The 14 points earned by LHS's juniors vaulted their team up the leader board into a tie for fourth place with B.C. High, and just two points behind Brockton for third. With just one event to go, The Minutemen called on sophomore Sheryas Hanchinamani, freshman Matteo Sanchez de Rojas, Cunningham, and Joseph to try and eek out some points from the unseeded heat. Hanchinamani got things off to a good start with a 53.4 split and the freshman followed it up with a 53.5 split of his own to keep his team in contention. Cunningham blazed around the track and put LHS in second, ahead of B.C. High, with a 52.5 split before handing off to Joseph. On his third race of the night, Joseph gave everything he had to hold off the hard charge of B.C. High's Joey McNeil. With a lean at the line, Joseph managed to hold onto second place in the heat by eight-hundredths-of-a-second with a final time of 3:33.91. That mark had LHS sitting in third, with the five teams still to race in the seeded section, including Brockton. As the race unfolded, it was clear that four teams would beat Lexington's mark. However, Brockton fell to the back of the pack, and as their anchor leg let off the gas in the final strides of the race, he crossed the line in 3:34.06, which meant no points for his team and gave The Minutemen the two points they needed to tie them for third place overall.
Other Highlights for the Girls
- The 4x800m Relay of Glenn, Callahan, Whorton, and freshman C.C. Kvaal bested a strong Weymouth crew for the gold medal and 10 points with a time of 9:30.60.
- With a first-attempt clearance of the bar at 4'10", Haverly landed herself in an eight-way tie for fourth place in the High Jump, which delivered 1.87 points.
- Junior captain Thayer DiCerbo (12:02.92) won the unseeded section of the 2 Mile and finished 12th overall; sophomore Josie Bettencourt (12:21.00) was 20th; freshman Daphne Warren (12:25.33) was 23rd as they crew all ran personal bests.
- In the 55m Hurdles, sophomore Emily Hoefkens (9.54) and freshman Cynthia Gu (9.74) finished 14th and 19th respectively.
- Senior captain Claire Cunningham (1:47.21) was 17th in the 600m.
- The 4x400m Relay of sophomore Alyssa McKee, freshman Addie Haiar, Caldera, and Cunningham finished 13th with a time of 4:25.18.
Final Girls Team Scores (Top 10)
1. Lexington - 84.87
2. Newton North - 60.74
3. Natick - 51
4. Needham - 32
5. Central Catholic - 30
6. Haverhill - 25.87
6. Methuen - 25.87
8. Weymouth - 23
9. Wachusett - 22.74
10. Brookline - 18
Other Highlights for the Boys
- In the 600m, Joseph was ninth with a time of 1:25.43; senior Kabir Gokarn finished 27th with a time of 1:29.76.
- Sophomore Trevor Stevens ran a personal best of 9:42.10 to finish ninth in the 2 Mile; fellow classmate Alden Hall (9:58.45) was 16th with a season best; sophomore Holden Cassity (10:04.94) was 23rd; junior Sam Finch (10:12.51) finished 30th; junior Liam Singh (10:20.65) was 33rd overall.
- The 1000m saw sophomore Eric House (2:39.13) win the unseeded section and finish 10th overall; sophomore Arjun Raha (2:40.54) was 14th; sophomore Finn O'Donnell (2:42.54) was 24th; senior Daniel Ryans (2:43.05) finished 26th; senior Will Fletcher (2:43.52) was 28th; sophomore Owen Ross (2:45.13) was 36th; junior Will Parker (2:45.42) was 37th.
- Chambers ran a personal best of 6.68 seconds to finish 10th in the 55m Dash.
Final Boys Team Scores (Top 10)
1. Lowell - 69
2. Newton North - 54
3. Lexington - 40
3. Brockton - 40
5. B.C. High - 39
6. Brookline - 36
7. St. John's Prep - 31
8. Lincoln-Sudbury - 28
9. Acton-Boxborough - 21
9. Andover - 21
Up Next
LHS's Bomb Squad will be back at Reggie Lewis on Wednesday, February 19th to compete at the Massachusetts Scholastic Weight Throw Championships. The meet begins at 10:30am.