Competing more than 3,000 miles from home, in an event not offered at most MIAA meets, Newton South’s girls’ sprint medley quartet still notched the Bay State’s only first-place finish over the first two days of outdoor national meets — and did so in dominant fashion.
Led by star senior Amelia Everett’s stellar 2-minute, 8.69-second split in the final 800 meters, the Lions won the girls’ 1,600-meter sprint medley relay in 4 minutes, 2.29 seconds on Friday at Nike Outdoor Nationals in Eugene, Ore., finishing nearly eight seconds ahead of the runner-up squad from MVP League (4:10.23) based in Lorton, Va.
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The Nike Outdoor Nationals is one of three large-scale national meets — along with the New Balance Outdoor Nationals in Philadelphia and the Adidas Outdoor Nationals in Greensboro, N.C. — where top athletes from Massachuestts are competing throughout the weekend.
Newton South’s first three runners in the girls’ sprint medley relay— Ellie Jolly and Christine Zong, running the 200 meter legs, and Emily Frawley running the 400-meter leg — notched a combined 1:53.61 split over the relay’s first half. The Stanford-bound Everett did the rest, running 800-meter splits that were comparable to those she ran at the MIAA Division 1 championships (2:08.27) and Meet of Champions (2:11.62) last month.
In addition, the Newton South boys’ sprint relay medley notched a fourth place finish (3:39.43) at Nike Nationals, powered by a 2:01.68 split in the final 800 meters by sophomore Alex Friedman.
Meanwhile at the New Balance Nationals, Framingham’s decorated senior Sam Burgess saved his career-best perforamce in the 5,000-meter for his last in high school competition, finishing third in Thursday’s 5K event (14:33.41) while setting a five-second personal record.
The previous best time for the Harvard-bound Burgess in the 5,000 came in a winning effort (14:38.90) at the MIAA Cross-Country championships this past fall. He also notched an indoor personal best (14:41.49) at the New Balance Nationals in February, where he also came in third.
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Uxbridge senior Aidan Ross followed Burgess in the 5K, finishing fifth (14:47.98) while Burlington senior Rithikh Prakash finished 11th (15:17.05), with both runners notching outdoor personal bests.
From the junior ranks Friday at New Balance Nationals, Lexington freshman Amari Mow followed up his long jump victories at the Division 1 championships (22 feet, 8 inches) and Meet of Champions (21-10½) with a first-place finish in boys’ freshman long jump (22-1¾). In the girls’ Rising Stars Distance Medley, Weston (12:20.99) and Westford Academy (12:33.17) finished second and fourth, respectively.
Groton-Dunstable eighth grader Greyson Duane followed up second-place finishes in the junior 1,500-meter (4:10.49), junior 1,600 (4:26.80), and junior 1-mile (4:28.69) at Brooks’ PR Invitational on Wednesday with a victory in the Middle School 1-mile (4:28.96) just two days later at Nike Nationals.
Matty Wasserman can be reached at matty.wasserman@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @Matty_Wasserman.