4x2 Relay Champions

Taylor N. Morton

On February 10th, screams from spectators filled the Floyd Little Athletic Complex as the 4x200m relay commenced the start of the 2018 CIAC Class LL Indoor Track State Open at Hillhouse High School in New Haven and the Brien McMahon girls eclipsed a .01 second victory in the 4x200 relay.

Jazmin Bien-Aime (‘18), Savannah Bromley (‘19) and Chloe Ortolano(‘19) had run the first three legs of the race and were situated in 4th place.That is until Peyton McNamara (‘20) saw an opportunity and ran with it, literally.

As McNamara turned the first curve of her leg of the race, the runner from West Haven tripped and fell causing the runner from Stamford to fumble as well. The fall resulted in McMahon gliding into 2nd place.

With only Greenwich ahead of her, Peyton gave it everything she had in her to catch up. As both teams edged towards the finish line Peyton pulled ahead of Greenwich. It was a close call but McMahon walked away with the win.

On running the race McNamara says “When I saw the girls fall I felt determined. I just ran as fast as I could.”

McMahon finished with a time of 1:48.38. Beating out Greenwich by one hundredth of a second.  “It was really exciting” said Bromley, “especially because it was the first time in a long time the 4x200 has come in first place at states.”

“When I saw those two girls fall I knew Peyton could catch up and that it would put us in a better position” said Bien-Aime.

The girls coach, Rudy Matute, also had faith in the relays ability to finish the race and come out on top. “I knew Peyton would catch up. She's got the speed.The girls got off to kind of a rough start but they got it.”

The girls Track Team finished 5th among 26.

The relay team will head to State Opens to compete once again on February 17th. Ortolano says in order to get ready for the meet the team will work on hand-offs but other than that they feel well prepared.

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