BRIDGEWATER — There was no doubt who the best girls’ 400-meter hurdler was Thursday evening at Bridgewater State in the MIAA Division 3 Track & Field Championship. Blackstone Valley Tech junior Haley Bilodeau might also have been the best juggler in the field.
Bilodeau won by 3.99 seconds in a meet-record 1:03.40, breaking the 1:03.63 by Peabody’s Cynthia Aroke in 2016.
Unfortunately for the athletic side of Bilodeau, she will not compete in the final day of the meet. She will be playing the violin Saturday as part of a rehearsal for three upcoming concerts in Greece as part of the New England Conservatory Youth Symphony Orchestra.
“I really can’t miss rehearsals or else they’re going to take my seat away,” she said of the orchestra that tours internationally every two years. “I’m aiming bigger for next year to come back with better times and distance for my javelin.”
The 16-year-old from Douglas will miss the javelin, where she would have been seeded third at 122 feet, and the 100-meter high hurdles.
As for Thursday’s race, she was seeded first by 4.69 seconds in 1:03.28. The biggest questions were whether she would set the meet record and if she could top her seed time. Despite the big lead, she cleared the final hurdle, charged home, and waited for word.
“I didn’t even know what the meet record was, I heard it right before the race, so I said, ‘Now I need to beat it because I was coming in with a faster time,’ ” Bilodeau said.
“Last year, I never would have thought about this, but this year, something turned on.”
She was fifth last year in the event at Division 5 in 1:08.27.
Bilodeau will get another chance to run the 400 hurdles next Thursday in the MIAA Meet of Champions at Fitchburg State, but will again exchange her track spikes for the violin on the second day of the meet.
Reading (35 points) is the team leader, as Katie Caraco won two events. First, the triple jump in 37-10½, besting teammate Isabelle Lightbody in the final jump by three inches. (Antonia Zagami was sixth in 34-6 to give the Rockets 21 points.)
The Sacred Heart-bound Caraco closed the day by winning the pentathlon with 2,966 points, edging Billerica’s Nyrah Joseph by 28. Caraco won the long jump and high jump, and finished close enough to Joseph in the final event, the 800. Joseph took first in the 100 hurdles and shot put.
“She had a great day. I know she was disappointed in her triple jump distance, but these pits are legit,” said Reading coach Nancy Madden. (Caraco is seeded first for Saturday’s high jump.) “She broke the school record in the pentathlon along with winning, and Nyrah is an amazing athlete as well, so she had good competition.”
Westwood (30) is second, getting a 1-2 finish in the 800 from sophomores Tea Pagnotti and Maeve Gavin. Mansfield (29) is third. Wesborough (25) went 1-2-3-8 in the pole vault.
Walpole (32) is the boys’ leader, backed by an 800 win from Sean Kerin in 1:57.78. Austin Feener placed second in the 200 in 21.99, and Cael Soto-Brouillard third in the pentathlon.
Milton (23) is second, with 16 coming from the 400 hurdles. Moses Mann, who hopes to walk on at George Washington next year, won in 55.62. Junior Zakai Perkins was third in 56.49.
Duxbury’s Oliver Bishop won the pentathlon with 3,190 points, taking first in each of the first three events — the 110 hurdles, long jump, and high jump.
