Young Lady Bruins serve notice

With sophomores and freshmen comprising about 75 percent of its roster, Baldwin’s girls’ track and field team overcame some growing pains this spring and managed a solid fourth-place finish in Division I-B behind a winning 4 x 400 relay.

“It’s a very young team,” Lady Bruins coach Paul Schaefer said. “Hopefully we have a very bright future. As I told them, the
program is in a good place right now. I’ve never had so many 60-something-second half-milers at one time.”

Though every member of the 4 x 400 relay — junior Guilise Gondre, junior Crystal Grierson, sophomore Charlotte Gondre and junior Chinira Lovick — was coming off one or two individual events, Baldwin crossed the tape on top in 4-minutes, 11.1-seconds. Runner-up Port Washington was more than three seconds behind. “They didn’t run fresh, but they dug deep,” Schaefer said. “Nobody’s running fresh at that point of the meet, so it comes down to heart. They wanted it, and they came back to take fifth in the county meet and set a PR.”

The Lady Bruins also took second in the division 4 x 100, with all four grades represented, and fourth in the division and fifth in the county in the 4 x 800 with sophomore Germine Moseau joining three members of the 4 x 400 to get the job done in the longest relay. “Everyone ran their best times in the 4 x 800,” Schaefer explained. In the sprint relay, he said senior Ayanna Smith, junior Wendy Cherry, sophomore Taylor Howell and freshman Tiffany Raymond bested the competition with the exception of Port Washington.

Though Baldwin went without an individual division champ, it racked up plenty of points with top six finishes in most events. Lovick impressed with a second-place finish in the 1500 meter race in 5:04. “She’s moved up in distance through the years as she’s developed strength,” Schaefer said. “She started with the 100 and 200 as a freshman, did the 400 and 800 last year, and the 800 and 1500 this year.”

Charlotte Gondre made huge strides down the stretch and took second in the 800 in the division, running a personal best 2:22.7 in the process, while Guilise Gondre earned third in the 100 High Hurdles and 400 Intermediate Hurdles. Grierson was third in the 400, Howell took fifth in the Triple Jump, and senior Rose Branch was fourth in the 100 and sixth in the 200.

Everyone but Smith and Branch returns next season.