FITCHBURG – Sophia Jacobs-Townsley has the 2-mile run dialed in to a science. She can practically predict her splits coming around the track, they’re so consistent.
The Amherst Regional senior won the event at the Central/West Division 1 Championships for the second year in a row, Saturday at Fitchburg State. She crossed the line in 10 minutes, 56.2 seconds, a meet record.
“I feel like this year has been really special in that I’ve been really able to drill down, and after a lot of building up in the past two years everything culminating together to put me in a place where I can run pretty consistently,” Jacobs-Townsley said. “I’ve got a good sense of what my pace should be.”
She also has to conserve energy for the mile and 4×800-meter relay. Jacobs-Townsley was fourth in the mile in 5:12.95 after winning last year. Algonquin’s Tess Reyes was first at 5:09.13 followed closely by Northampton junior Mary Yount in 5:10.48. Yount and Jacobs-Townsley worked together at the front of the race for the first few laps before Reyes closed.
“I usually don’t go out first. Out from the gun I went out fast because I know it gets clumped in there,” Yount said. “I was in first so I decided to stay there because it didn’t feel that fast at first. So I just held on as long as I could.”
Jacobs-Townsley also led off Amherst’s winning 4×800 relay. The Hurricanes have used the same team for the past three years: Jacobs-Townsley, Julia Hopley, Zada Forde and Isabela Shepard (second, 400, 58.06). They won in 9:53.25. Amherst was second before Shepard began her anchor leg, but she quickly made up the ground and put distance between the Hurricanes and the field.
“She has so much hard and always follows through,” Jacobs-Townsley said. “It’s really special.”
The Blue Devils were third in the 4×8 (10:07.93).
Jacobs-Townsley wasn’t Amherst’s only record-setter of the day. Kai Bailin set a new mark in the boys 400 hurdles at 54.82 seconds.
“I was feeling real tired, I was sick during the week. There were like three straight days where I wasn’t running at all,” he said. “I wasn’t trying to kill myself now, just trying to get through it.”
The 400 hurdles is a family specialty. His older brother Sage Bailin took third at the NCAA Division III Outdoor Championships on Saturday for Colby. Kai broke Sage’s Amherst school record during the season. He won the Central-West title in 54.82 seconds, also a meet record.
He ran the third leg on Amherst’s championship 4×1 relay with Beckett White, Benjamin Fang and anchor Junior Pontes daVeiga. Bailin handed Pontes daVeiga a chance to win, and he ran with it.
“As soon as I took the baton all I was thinking about was crossing the finish line with no one,” Pontes daVeiga said.
The top three finishers at all of the divisional meets qualify for the All-State meet, as well as the next six best performances overall. The meet takes place Saturday at Westfield State.