Georgetown Prep Track & Field

By Andy Reinsch

The first weekend of February means the return of the Private Schools Invitational to the Hanley Center, welcoming teams and elite performances from Maryland, DC, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. For the first time since 2012* Georgetown Prep found its way to the podium, finishing in third place behind Loyola Blakefield and Gonzaga, the overall team champion. 

The Hoyas were able to score in a wide variety of events, but as usual, were led by the jumps. Nate Shields '23 and Avi Lavu ' 23 earned victories in the long jump and triple jump, respectively. Each jumper posted a substantial personal best and qualified for prestigious post-season national championships. Shields returned to take fourth in the high jump, teaming up with Jayson Penn '24 who finished sixth in the event. A new athlete and a new event appeared on Prep's scoring slate as well. Kit Hennick '26 finished third in the pole vault in his debut at the event. When all the scoring was done, the jumps squad was responsible for half of Prep's point total for the meet. 

The impressive performances were not limited to the jump events, however. Shields' eye-popping day also featured a third-place finish in the 300m and the leadoff leg of the third-place 4x200m relay, carrying the baton along with Nick Palazzo '23, Jake Robey '23, and Thomas Fendig '24. Michael Crisp '23 dropped down to snag second-place honors in the 500m. In the longer distance events, Luke Knestout '24 ran a pair of personal bests in just under an hour, posting an 8th place finish of 4:47.10 in the 1600m and a 7th place performance of 2:49.32 in the 1000m. Wren O'Looney '25 also picked up some points for the Hoyas' team total with an eighth-place finish in the 3200m with a personal best of 10:34. Fireworks at the front of that 3200m race were provided by Jack Sullivan '24, who was left alone to take the lead early in the race and nearly pulled off an extremely rare wire to wire victory, finishing second overall with an enormous personal best time of 9:46. 

By Andy Reinsch

Since 2017, Georgetown Prep has hosted Montgomery County Private Schools for a season-ending championship which has been reliably fast-paced, wild, and successful for the home team. After falling to third place last year, a deep Hoyas squad that can put up great performances across the full slate of events showed up ready to reclaim the county championship. And they did, convincingly. There's no point in pretending there was drama involved in the outcome of this meet so make sure you've got your reading glasses and a comfy chair for a giant list of excellent performances that made up this huge team victory.

The day started out smoothly with a sweep in the 55m high hurdle event. Ethan Ristu '24 captured the title, towing JoJo Allen '24 and Jack Fojut '25 shortly after. Immediately after the hurdles, the 4x800m team of Cole DeLeire '25, Karl Schreiber '26, Andre Clevy '25, and Jesse Alexander '26 carried the baton to the medal stand, taking third. That relay success continued in the 4x200m as Nick Palazzo '23, Michael Crisp '23, Jake Robey '23, and Thomas Fendig '24 sprinted around a tough field and some woolly exchange zones for a silver medal in the event. Fendig, Robey, and Crisp would go on to join Tristan Lee '24 at the end of the evening for a third-place finish in the 4x400m. 

The distance squad gamely doubled and tripled over the course of this short meet in order to stack points toward the eventual team victory. Jack Sullivan '24 posted a personal best during his second-place performance in the 1600m, running 4:38.96. This was the fastest time by a Hoya athlete in the event in over a decade. Wren O'Looney also busted through his previous personal best with a 4:56 clocking to grab sixth-place points in the fast, deep field. Michael Crisp '23 dropped down to the 500m to challenge the talented sprint depth of IAC rival Bullis and with 150m remaining in the race, dropped the two pursuing Bullis runners en route to an alarming two-second victory, a personal best in the event, and a qualifier for New Balance Nationals. In the 1000m race, Luke Knestout '24 and Teddy Kavanagh '23 finished second and third respectively, both in personal bests in the event. Finally, O'Looney, Knestout, and Sullivan returned to action in the 3200m, hilariously ignoring the advice of their coach to work together and cruise in the back of the pack for easy points. Instead, Sullivan found himself pressed into service as the pacemaker for the field before dropping the hammer with 400m to go for a 10:14 victory. Knestout (in a personal best, no less) and O'Looney finished third and fourth in the race. 

Previous post-meet summaries have emphasized the success of the jumps crew, and they did not disappoint yesterday. Nate Shields '23 captured first place in the long jump and the high jump, managing appearances in both events alongside his runner-up finish in the 300m. Jayson Penn '25 finished second in the high jump and Avi Lavu '23 won the triple jump in yet another personal best of 42'8". That distance is also a New Balance Nationals qualifier. 

Finally, the growing group of scholars and gentlemen committed to the art of throwing heavy objects made an impact in the shot put. Preston Rogers '23 finished second and exceeded his previous personal best by more than two feet in the event. Malachi Streeter '25 and Christian Jantio '24 also broke through and are likely to figure prominently in future versions of these updates. 

By Andy Reinsch

Five teams headed to the IAC Outdoor Track and Field Championships hoping for some change to recent history. The defending champion and host, Bullis, intended to keep its run of success dating back to 2017 intact. Would their sprint group formed around emerging 400m star Quincy Wilson hold onto the title? Or would St. Albans' distance-forward squad bring the conference championship back to Cathedral Heights? Perhaps the wild running, jumping, throwing Hoyas or a resurgent Landon team upset everybody's applecart? 

The only way to settle it would be spread over three days last week, Wednesday for the pole vault competition, an abbreviated Thursday schedule for field events and some track preliminaries, and a big finale on Saturday. 

On Wednesday, Kit Hennick '25 got the Prep scoring started early with a fourth place finish in the pole vault. This was Hennick's rookie season at the event and he brought his absolute best to the conference championship, jumping a personal best nine feet. His feat represented the first Georgetown Prep points in the event since Christopher Barclay '18 in 2018. 

At Bullis on Thursday evening, Nate Shields '23 exhibited his usual dominance in the long jump. His very first jump of the event would have held up as the winning leap, except that he also exceeded it four more times. He finished with a 22'7.5" victory and ten points for the Hoyas. Nnamdi Udeogu '23 continued his successful return to the throwing ring and defended his 2022 victory in the shot put. Wrapping up a successful Thursday of conference, the 4x800m team of Teddy Kavanagh '23, Jack Sullivan '24, Michael Crisp '23, and Luke Knestout '24 clinched a third-place finish in the 4x800m with a season-best time of 8:19. 

Action picked up on Saturday afternoon with the Hoyas trailing St. Albans' hot start by a score of 30-45, and hoping to fend off a tide of likely Bullis points when the sprint finals occurred on Saturday. The jumps and throws crew started the day, as Avi Lavu '23 hop, skipped, and jumped his way to 41'11.5" and second place in the triple jump. Newcomer Colin Reynolds '24 made 5'8" look easy (to be clear - it is not easy) in the high jump to tie for second place in the event. And Nnamdi Udeogu '23 doubled down on his repeat titles by taking the discus in an extremely loud 142'10" performance. Jake Robey '23 captured a surprise podium finish in the discus as well, with a personal best that Coach Daniel Rose tells me is impressively uncommon in the rainy conditions Robey and Udeogu faced on Saturday.

That left the runners to deal with St. Albans' national-caliber distance squad and Bullis' renowned sprinters. The 4x100m team of Shields, Reynolds, Thomas Fendig '24, and Jake Robey '23 overcome a rocky first exchange to take fifth place honors in the event. Michael Crisp '23 stepped up in distance to the 1600m and took fourth place in 4:34. Crisp and Knesout would return a scant forty minutes later for the 800m, with Crisp kicking hard over the last 150m to earn himself a fashionable new personal best of 1:56.29 and second place in the event. 

Speaking of huge new personal bests, Thomas Fendig '23 took to the starting line in the 400m against some of the best 400m runners in the country and earned fourth place with a personal best of 51.64. Kevin Emerson '23 continued his success in the hurdles, a new event in his collection of talents, taking sixth place in both the high hurdles and the 300m intermediate hurdles. Shields had the evening off of jumping and was rewarded with a third place finish in the 100m dash and fifth in the 200m dash. 

The IAC championship typcically conclude with the methodical back and forth of the 3200m and the euphoric chaos of the 4x400m relay. Jack Sullivan '24 and Teddy Kavanagh '23 took third and fourth place in the former event. Kavanagh '23 concluded his IAC career with a shiny new personal best in the 3200m. Fendig, Robey, Crisp and Nick Palazzo '23 took fourth place in 4x400m to end the evening. 

When all the scores were scored, the Hoyas finished third behind Bullis and new champion St. Albans. The performance was the first time the Hoyas reached 100 points since 2014, and the first time the Hoyas scored in every single event since longer back than I felt like researching. The conference champions of 2012 didn't do it, in any event. 

The Hoyas 2023 outdoor track and field regular season is done. There are post-season events on the horizon for a small number of athletes.

1. St. Albans 160
2. Bullis 116
3. Georgetown Prep 103
4. Landon 57
5. St. Stephen's 49
6. Episcopal 40