The Blue Devils now hold the fifth fastest time currently in the U.S. for the distance medley relay. Westfield’s time of 10 minutes and 13 seconds in the relay is a top-five performance in Blue Devil history and landed them fifth place in this event.
On Feb. 5, the Blue Devils traveled to the University of Pennsylvania’s newly constructed Ott Center to compete in one of the most prestigious regular-season meets that high school track offers.
Westfield only went into the meet with three varsity relays and they finished with stellar times in each of those three relays.
Starting off the day was Westfield’s strongest relay, the distance medley relay consisting of seniors Kaleb Stoekmann, Tyler Pietrewicz and Ryan Daly, and junior Christian Buonopane.
Stoeckmann led off by running the 1200 meters in 3 minutes and 7 seconds, putting Westfield in a great position for the remainder of the race. Pietrewicz knocked off more than half a second off of his best 400 time, with a split time of 50.47.
Buonopane followed with a time of 2:00.73, keeping Westfield close to the top pack. Daly anchored with the strongest performance of the day in the 1600, running a well-deserved personal best of 4:14 placing him third all time in Westfield history.
Following his race, Daly said, “I knew the race would be stacked going in and that there would be some pretty good anchors on my leg. I was a little farther behind than I would have liked to be, so I had to go out hard to make up the space.” Daly started fast, completing his first 400 meters in 59 seconds, which is extremely quick for a mile.
The second of the three relays was the 4×200 where freshman phenom Owen O’Connor ran his leg in 23.3 seconds, which was just one-tenth of a second from his own freshman record. Next were seniors, Charlie Prieto and Charlie Vanecek who both ran 23.4 seconds. The anchor of the relay was Pietrewicz who ran 22.14 seconds and finished with a time of 1:32.
The third and final relay of the day was the 4×800, where Stoeckmann led off his second race of the day with an impressive 1:59.7, giving the Blue Devils an early lead. Then came junior Brody Toriello who ran an impressive 2:00.91, followed by senior Cole Varner who ran 2:03.45. Anchoring the race was senior Jack Hill who ran 2:00.65 and secured first place with a time of 8:04.
After this performance in the 4×800, Stoeckmann believes Westfield will be able to get its third consecutive national title in that event. “With Daly being one of the best 800-meter runners in the country we obviously have that as an advantage, but with the other three guys I believe we could all get our times down and win another national championship and possibly have another school record of sub 7:46,” said Stoeckmanm.
The Blue Devils will run again on Feb. 16 for the North 2, Group 4 Sectional championship meet. Head coach Christopher said, “Both Ryan and Kaleb were rock solid in their events. Over their careers they’ve experienced the most demanding races in the sport, at the county, state, and national level. They keep themselves very calm in tough situations. That not only serves them very well, but it demonstrates to their teammates how to execute those big races, so they can learn how to do it in the future. We’re going to need big production from those guys as we head into sectionals next week.”
