‘Heavenly’ time for Dubin, Greenwich High indoor track teams at class LLs

Written by Paul Silverfarb
Thursday, 16 February 2012 02:21

The good times keep on coming for Greenwich High School head coach Evan Dubin and his boys and girls indoor track teams.

During the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference class LL championship, which was held at New Haven’s Floyd Little Athletic Center, the Greenwich girls team finished second overall with 74 points. The boys team exceeded all expectations and also finished second overall, amassing 55 points on the evening.

“It was a great performance from both teams and I was thrilled,” Greenwich High head coach Evan Dubin said.

For the boys, Greenwich’s 55 points was five points better than Danbury, who took third overall. Staples won the class LL title with 80.50 points and Amity placed fourth overall with 41 points. Conard rounded out the top five with 34 points.

“I was completely shocked that the boys team was able to get second,” Dubin said. “They were strong throughout the entire meet and had some really great performances. It was heavenly to watch them compete.”

On the girls side, Greenwich was comfortably in second place. Danbury won the event with 91 points, while Norwich Free Academy finished third with 51 points. Amity took the fourth spot with 40 points and Brien McMahon rounded out the top five with 36 points.

“I thought the girls had a shot to win,” Dubin said. “It was going to take us doing our best and a slip-up from Glastonbury and NFA. We were able to capitalize on some of Norwich’s mistakes, but Glastonbury was just too strong. We still performed very well, but Glastonbury was the better team.”

Seniors Marcus Motill and Abby Markowitz paced Big Red throughout the evening, both grabbing two individual gold medals each.

In the 1,000-meter run, Markowitz took home the top spot with a time of 2:58.39, two seconds better than the second place finisher. She also wasn’t denied in the 1,600-meter run, placing first overall with a time of 5:17, a little over a second faster than the rest of the field.

Markowitz finished her evening with a ninth place finish in the 3,200-meter run, scoring a time of 11:40.18.

“We knew Abby had a good shot to win the 1,000- and 1,600-meter events,” Dubin said. “She got a PR in the 1,000 and that was another great achievement for Abby. I’m proud of her.”

When it came to the speed events, nobody was better than Motill. Competing in both the 300- and 600-meter events, Motill was tops. In the 300-meter dash, he was golden with a time of 35.68 seconds and his time of 1:23.12 was good enough for first in the 600-meter run.

Motill started his day helping teammates Elijah Dume, Nick Pulitano and Ryan Kelly win the 4x200-meter relay event with a time of 1:32.25.

“He was the No. 1 seed in the 600 and he lived up to it, that’s for certain,” Dubin said. “The 300 was a complete surprise. If someone was going to win that race, I would have thought it would be Ryan Kelly. Marcus came through with an amazing time. I don’t know where he pulled that time out of, but I’ll take it.”

The Greenwich High boys team also had a plethora of strong finishers. Leading the way was a pleasant surprise in the shot put event, as senior Robert Gelcius won with a distance of 47-10 1/2, over two inches better than the second place athlete.

“I think Robert’s performance was one of the best we’ve had here,” Dubin said. “He came out of nowhere to win the shot put. That’s 10 unexpected points for us and if you took those away, we would be talking about a possible fourth place finish for the boys. That extra boost really pushed us over the edge.”

Kelly, a senior, also came through in the clutch for Big Red. His time of 36.11 in the 300-meter dash was good enough for the bronze, while his time of 1:23.89 scored GHS six points and was good enough for third as well.

Also competing with Kelly in the 300-meter event was Dume, a junior. His time of 36.73 placed him sixth overall.

Junior Daniel Wilbanks also came through for Greenwich with two points, finishing fifth in the 1,000-meter run with a time of 2:41.84.

The foursome of Pulitano, a junior, freshman Paul Quiroga, Wilbanks and sophomore Robert Wilson competed in the 1,600-meter sprint medley relay and took seventh overall with a time of 3:49.36.

In the field events, Greenwich’s Peter Kelly, a senior, took 13th place overall in the shot put with a distance of 40-00.

For both teams, Dubin couldn’t have been happier with the way his relay teams competed.

“That’s been our strength all year round,” Dubin said. “We knew our relays would be difficult to beat. We’ve been practicing handoffs to keep things as sharp as possible. We are very lucky to have the depth in those events to keep that strength going.”

Both Greenwich High School boys and girls indoor track teams will be back in action Saturday at noon, when they once again travel to the Floyd Little Athletic Center in New Haven and compete in the CIAC state open finals at noon.

---

Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites