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In early July, nine members of the South Brunswick PAL track and field team competed in the USATF Youth Outdoor Championship at Morgan State University in Baltimore. Athletes needed to meet or beat qualifying standards within their events over the last year in order to participate.
The requirement to exceed an established time, number of points or distance ensures that the championship is even more competitive than a Junior Olympic competition. Athletes from locations all over the US showed up to participate and only the top eight in each event receive medals.
Competition for South Brunswick was centered on running, race-walk and multi-events.
The week began with multi-event competition for Indira Morton, Justin and Cayla Delpiano.
Morton claimed sixth place in the two-day Heptathlon. She long jumped 15-1¼, threw the javelin 80-8, ran the 800 in 2:37.90, the 100 hurdles in 17.56 and the 200 in 26.96, high jumped 4-7 and threw the shot 29-8½. Morton also triple jumped 31-1¼.
Justin DelPiano competed in the decathlon for the first time and came away with a sixth place. His results were: 110 hurdles (18.68), discus (29.97 meters), pole vault (3.35), javelin (38.6), 1500 (4:54), 100 (12.54), long jump (16-5¾), shot (35-5¼), high jump (5-1) and 400 (55.40). Delpiano also competed in the pole vault as an individual event, ranking 5th overall with a 10-11¾.
Cayla Delpiano participated in the triathlon, putting in a strong performance in the 200 (3.56), high jump (3-3¼) and shot (16-3¼). She also took third in the turbo javelin (58-0) and ran the 1500 in 5:42.
Lindsay DelPiano and Taryn Wrotny both competed in race-walk for the first time nationally and each took home a medal. DelPiano was second in her age group in 9:52.8. Wrotny won a sixth-place medal in her age group with a personal-best walk time of 9:43.7.
Competing in steeplechase for the first time nationally were Bobby Ayala and Kristina Bonfiglio. Ayala placed sixth in 7:10.46 and Bonfiglio brought home the eighth-place medal with a pb time of 10:17.96.
Jonathon Pitt attended the championship to compete in both 100 dash and long jump. He ran 15.32 in the 100 and landed a 12-5¼ in the long jump.
Falen Watson competed in both the 100 hurdles and 200 hurdles for the first time nationally. Her only previous experience in hurdles had been on the middle school and multi-event level. After a rough start, she managed to fight her way to 17.68 in the 100 hurdles and rallied in the 200 hurdles with a 32.78 clocking.
Hurdles and sprint competitions are tough on the elite national level. Both Pitt and Watson were able to place respectably within the competition in their age group.
Also qualifying, but unable to attend the event were Sean Lease and Stephanie Rodriguez. The team looks forward to competition in Des Moines Iowa for AAU Nationals and Eugene, Oregon for USATF Junior Olympics this summer.
