Published June 10, 2021
WENHAM — On Sunday, May 30, the North Reading High School girls’ track and field team arrived at Gordon College on a rainy day with temperatures in the 50 degree range, oppressively cold and wet with June just two days away. They knew the weather predicted, so they came equipped ready to compete in the less than ideal conditions. They spent the week working on their skills and mechanics while their coaches fine tuned the rosters to put together winning combinations of teams. The Hornets set their sights on winning a fifth straight state relay championship and that’s exactly what they did.
North Reading contested all 15 events and scored in 12 of the 15, winning five events at 10 points each for 50 total points . They amassed another 38 points in the remaining events to total 88 points, well ahead of second place Melrose (53), followed by Burlington (45), Plymouth South (43) and Wilmington (38).
Leading her team to victory was senior captain Katelyn Gorgenyi, who was a part of three of the five winning teams. To start things off, Gorgenyi anchored the 4 x 100 meter shuttle hurdle relay along with Ella Monteleone, Kayla Hannan and Ashley Rabbitt to a winning time of 1:06.85. Katelyn then ran the second leg of the winning 4 x 100 meter relay, taking the baton from Kayla Budny and passing off to Ava McIntyre with anchor Sam Patch bringing it home in 51.48 seconds. Gorgenyi capped off her stellar day with the biggest triple jump of the meet (34’ 5”), which partnered with Abigail Lilley (32’ 1”) and Kayla Budny (32’ .75) gave the Hornets another first place and another 10 points.
In the field events, the Hornets scored a whopping 54 of the 88 points they scored at the meet. That means they could have won the meet outright by one point without even running any track events.
In addition to winning the triple jump, they also won the javelin with Maddy Vant (87’ 11”), Sam Magner (68’ 6”), and Kristina Valenti (67’ 3”) as well as the pole vault with Ashley Rabbit (9’6”), Jessica Hill (9’0”) and Kayla Hannan (8’0”). In the shot put, Emma Mini (26’ 11”), Maddy Vant (26’ 4.5”) and Abigail Lilley (20’ 10”) took 2nd place and eight points. In the discus, Sam Magner (79’ 1”), Abigail Lilley (75’ 5”), and Emma Mini (59’ 3”) took 3rd place and six points.
In the High Jump, Ella Montelone (4’8”), Georgia Robarts (4’ 4”) and Brooke Harrington (4’4”) took 3rd place and six points. In the long jump, Maddy Vant (15’ 7.5”), Georgia Robarts (15’ 5.5”) and Ava McIntyre (13’ 5”) took 4th place and four points.
On the track, the distance squad made up of Annie MacLellan, Annalise Butler, Karleigh Budny, and Julia Thorstad picked up a valuable four points with a 4th place finish in the 4 x 1600 meter relay. Three of the four (MacLellan, Budny, and Thorstad, along with Margaret Fortin) came back an hour later and took second in the 4 x 800 meter relay for second place and eight points with a time of 10:46.70. Thorstad came back for a third event, anchoring the 4 x 400 meter relay to a 5th place finish with a time of 4:26.96 along with teammates Kayla Budny, Margaret Fortin and Ashley Rabbit. The victory was the fifth straight relay championship as the Hornets won the event in 2018 and 2019 competing in Division 3. They also won the event in 2016 and 2017 competing in Division 4. As the relay champion is the favorite going into the state championship, the Hornets have next set their sights on winning a fifth straight state championship as they won the Division 4 meet in 2016 and 2017 and Division 3 meet in 2018 and 2019. Look for those results in future Transcript articles.
