The Chelsea High girls track and field team is in the final stretch of its dual meet season. The Lady Red Devils remain undefeated, improving their record to 7-0 with recent wins against Mystic Valley (71-65) and Shawsheen Tech (98-38). “The girls are really pulling together as a team. They have been cheering each other on, celebrating with members who are getting personal bests, and overall just supporting each other. It’s exciting to seem the come together as a team,” said CHS girls head coach Kim Huffer.
Chelsea took on a tough competitor in Mystic Valley and prevailed in the final race, the 4 x 400 relay. “Mystic Valley has improved greatly as a team over the past two years and we knew it was going to be a close battle” said Huffer. “The meet came down to the 4 x 400 relay. We knew we had to win that race to win the meet. We also knew that we would have to run a season best time. The members of that team had a lot of pressure to stay focused and run strong. With the support of their teammates cheering them on, Tatyana Almeida, Loren Ramos, Jesenia Contreras, and Mursal Hassan ran their best time of the season, improving eight seconds to win the relay and hence the meet. It was very exciting.”
A number of other strong performances by the Chelsea girls helped squeeze out a victory against Mystic Valley. Thien-Ly Che led the Chelsea sweep of the 100 hurdles with Shuly Sejour and Quinnee Valenzona. Che also finished first in the triple jump and third in the 400 hurdles. Jesenia Contreras led the way in the 800, finishing ahead of two Mystic Valley girls. Wendy Chung finished first in the 200 dash, second in the high jump, and was a member of the winning 4×100 relay team (along with Zuleima Castillo, Karolyn Moni, and Stephanie Moni). Shuly Sejour had a strong day, winning the high jump, finishing second in the 100 hurdles, and gaining a third place finish in the 200.
Chelsea continued its winning streak by defeating Shawsheen Tech on Tuesday. Although it wasn’t the best performance by the Chelsea athletes as a whole, the team worked hard to improve their record to 7-0. Chelsea won both the 4 x 100 and 4 x 400 relays. Additionally, Chelsea swept 6 of 16 events (the two mile, mile, 800, 400 dash, javelin, and shot put).
Notable individual performances of the day for the Lady Red Devils included:
400 Hurdles: 2. Mursal Hassan, 3. Tatyana Almeida
2 Mile: 1. Arandeni Ramos, 2. Monica Hernandez, 3. Vanessa Mercado
100High Hurdles: 1. Shuly Sejour, 3. Quinnee Valenzona
100M: 3. Zuleima Castillo
Mile: 1. Anelsa Beqo, 2. Neris Yanes, 3. Arandeni Ramos
400M: 1. Quinnee Valenzona, 2. Loren Ramos, 3. Elsa Nunez
800M: 1. Jesenia Conteras, 2. Belinda Beqo, 3. Jennifer Medrano
200M: 2. Wendy Chung, 3. Shuly Sejour
Discus: 2. Rebecca Torrento, 3. Shanice Hernandez
Shot Put: 1. Bahiya Nasuuna, 2. Christina Fernandez, 3. Shanice Hernandez
Javelin: 1. Zuleima Castillo, 2. Cristal Rodriguez, 3. Solmaira Acevedo
Long Jump: 1. Shuly Sejour, 2. Stephanie Moni
Triple Jump: 2. Jesenia Contreras
High Jump: 2. Mursal Hassan, 3. Shuly Sejour
Huffer and her team travel to Greater Lowell today (Thursday) to finish off the dual meet season. Both Chelsea and Greater Lowell are the only undefeated teams in the CAC Conference.
“It comes down to the team that has been our biggest competition the last few years. Both of us enter the meet with an undefeated season. It should be a tough meet that will require us to be at our best. It’s an exciting (and stressful!) way to end this part of the season. I’m hoping we can keep the winning streak alive” said Huffer.