LONGMONT — It’s hard enough to win one of the top-tier awards at a meet like the Boulder County Invitational, but it’s another thing entirely to win a pair.
At the 2017 Boulder County meet on Saturday, Niwot’s Mary Gillett treated the crowd at Everly-Montgomery Field to a dynamic and masterful performance. She won the girls Most Valuable Athlete award for winning four individual events and scoring a meet-best 40 points for her team, and also won the Most Outstanding Performance for breaking the meet record in the open 400-meter dash.
But Gillett has just developed a tendency for leaving her mark all over just about every track meet she competes in, plain and simple.
“I’ve been looking forward to this meet for a really long time and today was just so awesome,” Gillett said. “I have to give most of the credit to my coaches and my teammates because they’re always pushing me in practice and this whole week that has made me very goal-driven. I put a lot of pressure on myself and my goal is to win every race and it was really difficult to rush from one race to another but it was also a lot of fun.”
Gillett, a junior, won the girls 400 in 56.29 seconds to take down the only girls meet record of the day. She also won the 100 in 12.46 seconds, the 200 in 25.58 seconds and the long jump with a mark of 17 feet, 17.50 inches. Behind her outstanding output, the Niwot girls won nine of 19 events and took home their eighth consecutive Boulder County team title.
While Skyline’s Braden Kram was named Most Valuable Athlete on the boys side, it was Monarch’s Isaac Green who claimed the only other meet record of the day and earned the boys Most Outstanding Performance award.
Green, a senior who will run for the University of Washington next season, won the boys open 800 in 1 minute, 53.79 seconds to reset the meet record without even hitting a personal best time. His current best in the 800 is 1:52.62.
“I didn’t really hit the time I wanted to but it was a good race on a hot, windy day,” said Green, who is fresh off winning the invitational boys mile at the Arcadia Invitational. “It’s really cool because my sister has the girls 800 record so now I can say, ‘Hey, Claire. I got it too.’ Now we’ve got them both.”
Claire Green, Isaac Green’s older sister, set the Boulder County Invitational girls 800-meter record at 2:12.12 in 2014. Now the Green siblings can sit back and count how many years they can hold onto the 800 record-book sweep.
Brad Cochi: cochib@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/BradCochi
