Three Gilmour Academy student-athletes won Most Valuable Performer awards as the boys and girls track and field teams competed at the Bison Invitational held at Beachwood High School this past weekend.
Mackenzie Palinski '21 and Amy Weybrecht '24 were named Girls Field and Running MVPs, respectively, while CJ Johnson '22 earned Boys Field MVP honors.
The efforts by Palinski and Weybrecht led the Gilmour girls to a first-place finish in the 11-team field. The Lancers' winning total of 142 points was more than 60 points clear of runner-up Hawken School.
Palinski won the discus with a fling of 112 feet, 3 inches. She also placed third in the shot put with a mark of 33 feet, 2 inches.
Weybrecht won an individual event in style and also ran on two relays, one of which also finished first. She crossed the line first with a tremendous effort in the 800-meter run, finishing in 2:16.37. She also ran the anchor leg on Gilmour's 4x400 meter relay that placed first in 4:11.10.
Kaleigh McNamara '22, Mariyah Moore '24 and Mary Lombardo '22 ran the opening three legs of the Lancers' 4x400 relay.
Moore also had a standout day, tallying a first-place and a second-place finish in both the individual events and the relays. She won the 100-meter dash in 13.28 seconds and took second in the 200 in 26.79 seconds.
Gilmour took maximum points from the 100-meter hurdles. Karah Henderson '22 won the event in 15.47 seconds while Edith Tomasek '23 was the runner-up in 17.58 seconds. Henderson then proceeded to finish second in the 300-meter hurdles in 48.56 seconds.
Bella Lasecki '22, Henderson, Kai Logan '23 and Moore combined to take second place in the 4x100 meter relay. Their time of 52.51 seconds was just .05 seconds behind the winning quartet.
Gilmour's 4x800 meter relay, featuring Weybrecht, Mia Polisena '22, Nina Padanilam '22 and Caitrina Barton '21, took third place in 10:21.13.
Lombardo took third in the 800-meter run (2:24.63) while McNamara and Kaitlin Rulison '23 were fourth in the 400-meter dash (1:03.62) and the 3200-meter run (12:36.58), respectively.
Brinn MacLellan '21 (4 feet, 6 inches) and Jazminn Bremer '24 (4 feet, 4 inches) placed third and fourth, respectively, in the high jump.
CJ Johnson put forth an admirable effort in the field events to lead the Gilmour boys. He placed first in the shot put with a mark of 47 feet, 8.5 inches. His winning heave was more than six feet clear of the runner-up. Johnson then won the discus with a fling of 134 feet, 7 inches, more than 13 feet ahead of the second-place finisher.
Griffin Johnson '23 took fifth in the shot put with a mark of 38 feet, 9.25 inches.
Also scoring in individual events for the Gilmour boys were Dorjan Flowers '23 in the 100-meter dash (12.03 seconds) and Alexander Beedles '22 in the 400-meter dash (54.56 seconds).
The Lancer boys also scored in both the 4x100 and 4x400 meter relays.
Peter Kavcic '22, Mason Rosado '22, Flowers and Anders Sorensen '23 were on the 4x100 team that finished in 49.19 seconds.
Scott Vergilii '23, Beedles, Tim Lee '24 and Kavcic combined to stop the clock in 4:18.53 in the 4x400 relay.
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