Last week, the Gloucester High Indoor Track team headed to Roxbury to start off their season. The MSTCA Winter Festival is an invitational meet that showcased some of Gloucester’s talent early in the season. Small schools from all over Massachusetts came to the Reggie Lewis Center to compete.

There were 15 athletes who competed in their first-ever indoor track meet. 9 of them competed in 55m dash and 7 of these athletes also competed in the long jump. 

The new freshmen runners are Lacie Bouchie, Chandra Lavery, Jenna Church, Laci Bouchie, Michael Francis, and Sam Ashwell. 

Ashwell ran the 55m dash in 8.09 seconds along with Bouchie who ran 9.36, Lavery 9.25, and Church 8.64. Francis in the 600m finished with a time of 1:56. 

The other 9 athletes consisted of 5 sophomores; Max Sperry, Allan Segura, Jenna Hoofnagle, Vivian Marchant, and Kira Berlin. Sperry ran the 600m dash in 1:47 and Berlin was joined in the 55m with Segura as he also had a standout performance in long jump jumping 17’0’’. Marchant and Hoofnagle threw shot put as they both threw over 20 feet.

The other 4 new athletes were all juniors; Joey Ciaramitaro, Luke Walkama, Avery Smith, and Harry Pelosi. Ciaramitaro was joined by Smith in the 55m with times of 8.95 and 9.12, respectively. Walkama had a personal best in the shot put as he threw 33’7’’ and Pelosi ran the 1000m in 2:55.

There were many individual standout performances for Gloucester as they had 5 athletes place in their event. Trevor Fulford ran the 55-meter hurdles along with Kai DeGuzman as Fulford 6th and DeGuzman placed 4th. Both athletes had personal bests with Fulford running 9.14 and DeGuzman with a time of 8.74.

Harry Pelosi placed 8th in the 1000m with a personal best of 2:55. Andrew Coelho placed 11th in the 600m with a time of 1:33. Jenna Hoofnagle also placed in the shot put with a throw of 28’9.5’’ as these two athletes were the best performing underclassmen in their events. 

Coach Coleman was very pleased with the teams first meet of the season as he said, “It was good first meet, I think we got a solid performance out of all the athletes and some benchmarks in which we can move forward.” 

Gloucester’s next meet on December 18th at Beverly High School at 4 pm. At this meet, they will be competing against Lynn English and Beverly as they hope to get a win in the first dual meet of the season.