Relay Team Places Fifth in the Nation

It was fitting that the four boys called themselves the Space Cadets, because the race they ran on Saturday earned them a place in the upper stratosphere of the nation's distance relay teams.

For one final time during the indoor track season, Stow sophomores Brendon Aylaian and Coby Horowitz teamed with senior Anthony Raduazo and junior Joe Doyle to place fifth in the 4 x 1 mile relay at the National Scholastic Indoor Track & Field Championships in New York City.

“It was a tremendous, tremendous effort on their part,” said Don Gribbons, who along with Ley Ricker coached the foursome throughout the Nashoba Regional indoor track season. “Fifth in the nation—you can't beat that.”

Gribbons and Ricker did not attend the non-MIAA sanctioned national meet because, technically, the athletes were not representing their school. Instead, the boys wore Nashoba colors of green and gold but competed as representatives of their own “running club,” which they called the Space Cadets.

The quartet, who have been running together since the cross country season started in the fall, had already established themselves as one of the top 4 x 800 meter relay teams in the region with a fourth place finish at the all-New England meet two weeks ago. But New York was uncharted territory in two ways: no Nashoba relay team had ever competed at the national level, and this particular relay team had never run the 4 x 1 mile event.

Not that anyone would have guessed. The team finished in 18:04.81, with all four legs running at close to or better than their previous best one-mile times. Meanwhile, the top three teams – from Danbury, CT (17:28.47), Warwick Valley, NY (17:31.49), and Germantown, Penn.(17:34.25)--posted the third, seventh and 10th fastest high school times ever in the event.

In individual events, Raduazo placed 14th in the 2-mile run with a time of 9:33.08, and Doyle, who had battled an intestinal flu all week, placed 19th in the 800 meter run with a time of 1:56.96—which Gribbons said marked the first time any Nashoba runner had broken the 1:59 mark.

But was the coach at all surprised by the athletes' strong showing?

“No,” he said. “They're that good.”