Hilltoppers End Track Season With Five All-Americans

GREENSBORO, N.C.—The Hilltoppers traveled to Greensboro, North Carolina this past week to compete in the New Balance National Championships.  Seven track and field athletes made the trek from Summit High School.

"Nationals was a very good way to end the season," said boys head coach Tony Martins.  "We got to see the future of the girls, Ben (Raskin) had a good end to his high school career, and Mark (Jones), well, you just shake your head at what he can accomplish."

The girls team competed in two relays and was represented by Kearsley Olcott, Isabella Yozzi, Katie Watson, Bridget O'Brien and Rebecca Cummings.  The girls were coming off a fantastic performance at state sectionals, where they took sixth place overall.

Olcott, Yozzi, Watson and O'Brien competed in the Emerging Elite Distance Medley relay.  Summit had only recently found out that they even qualified for the race.  The girls ran time of 12:41.21.

"We found out that we qualified the Monday of that week during finals.  We ran it at the East Coast Relays and got a 12:33 there, so we were a little disappointed," said Watson, the junior on the team. "We all ran together though, and it was fun so it was okay. It was exciting. I'm really happy."

Olcott, Yozzi and Watson returned for the Emerging Elite 4x800m relay and were joined by Cummings.  At the state sectionals the four girls had combined for season best time of 9:34.  At Nationals the girls shaved another second off for a time of 9:33.15.  The time was good enough for fourth place and earned the girls All-American status.

"This season was a lot different than other season in the way we trained," said Watson.  "We did more endurance workouts than speed, so I think that helped a lot with how we progressed.  I was happy with how we ran.  It was a hot and we were tired and we still ran our best time."

The boys team competed in two individual events and was represented by Ben Raskin and Mark Jones.  Raskin and Jones have consistently led the team this season, scoring most of the points in the boys team's sectional title.

Duke-bound Raskin competed in the Emerging Elite 400m race.  Raskin was still nursing an injury, but ran through the pain for a third place finish in his heat, taking 13th overall.

"As we got past the relay season in April, Ben had kind of been compaining about some shin pain," said Martins.  "We tried to take it easy on him.  Although he was hurting pretty bad he decided to give it a go in the conference meet and we ended up winning.  After that meet he was in the pool, on a bike or a on a treadmill for the rest of the season.  It turns out he had a stress impact injury, which if he had continued on a track, would have turned into a stress fracture.  We actually liked the race at Nationals because he looked like he did at the beginning of the season.  He didn't have any pain two days later which is usually the telling sign."

Jones, the high jump winner at the NJSIAA Meet of Champions, competed in the Boys High Jump Championship.  Jones cleared 2.05m (6'10 ¾") to take home gold as well as an All-American title.  He is the first Summit High School National High Jump Champion.

"There was actually five guys that were ranked ahead of him," said Martins. "This was the first time Mark had jumped in a two-day competition.  It's a very different competition for them.  We thought he was jumping well on the first day, but then they stop everyone at 6'8" in preliminaries and start from scratch the next day.  The next day he jumped at 2 p.m. in 95 degree heat, but it just so happened that he actually had his best jumping day the second day."

The outlook for Summit Track and Field is a positive one.  The girls will lose Olcott to Wake Forest and the boys will lose Raskin to Duke, but the rest of the competitors who traveled to Greensboro will be back next year to lead the team.

"I'm really excited, I love the depth that we have," said Watson. "Next year we have a bunch of 800 runners coming up who are really fast so we're going to be able to put together another awesome 4x800.  And a lot of them are going to run cross country.  We're going to be really good in cross country."