by John Y. Wehmueller | Staff Writer
In Garvey Young’s remarkable high school athletic career, one of the things he’d never done was run 800 meters in competition. Until Saturday, when the Georgetown Prep senior did it during the IAC Track & Field Championship meet at Bullis.
A distant ninth in the nine-man field 200 meters from the finish, Young went into a dead sprint, passing everyone but his own teammate, Ramsey Chapin, to give the Little Hoyas valuable second-place points.
Young also finished first in the triple jump and joined two winning relay teams (the 4x100 and 4x400), meaning he had a hand in 38 team points. That’s nine more than Georgetown Prep would need to defend last year’s IAC title against runner-up St. Albans.
‘‘Coach told me before the [800] that this was a big race,” Young said. ‘‘I just tried to stay with the pack and finish second to help the team get points.”
Not a bad payoff in Young’s first-ever track season. The All-Gazette boys soccer Player of the Year in 2007 and three-time basketball first-teamer has signed to play hoops at the University of Vermont next season.
When he signed, he became ineligible to play AAU basketball this spring, which opened him up for a spring sport at Prep for the first time.
Young’s first triple jump was three weeks before IACs; he won Saturday with a mark of 45 feet, 7 inches, the second-best the county has seen in two years. He is one of only five county athletes to clear 6-foot-2 in the high jump this spring.
‘‘They tried me in all the events; after about a week, I just figured out which ones I felt comfortable doing,” Young said. ‘‘I knew a lot of the guys; they were encouraging me to come out. They told me it would be a great experience. I accepted the challenge. ...
‘‘I just love being part of winning teams. That’s one of the greatest things about sports: Creating bonds with your teammates and winning together.”
His 800 was the unexpected brainchild of coach Tom Dunston. Young skipped one of his best events, the high jump, Friday to attend his older brother’s college graduation. Sticking him in the 800 on the meet’s second day, after he’d only ever run it once in practice, may have seemed like a punishment.
But Dunston told Young to go out fast, getting between Chapin and the rest of the field, then jog the first half of the second lap before kicking into gear around the far turn. That’s exactly what happened; Young out-leaned two St. Albans runners at the line.
Brandon Tisdale and Chapin also had big weekends. Chapin outdid even Young, with four wins (800, 1600, 4x400, 4x800). Tisdale won the 100 and 4x100, and finished in a dead heat with Episcopal’s Allante Keels to share first-place points in the 200. Ifranyi Edochi (long jump) was Prep’s other individual winner.
‘‘We’ve been running dual meets with the public schools all year, Chapin said. ‘‘Public schools draw from a deeper talent pool. But when you get here, it’s a championship. People step up; you never really know what to expect.”
Injury-beset Landon finished fourth at the meet, but last year’s All-Gazette first team pole vaulter, Jamie Gabriel, cleared 12 feet to win handily. Gunnar Wray finished third in the pole vault and the 100, while Jordan Ford took second in the discus. KaQuan Little was Bullis’ top performer, picking up third-place finishes in both the 110 and 300 hurdles.
