After an impressive display at the Morris County Championships where the Green Wave took first place overall with 69 points, with the closest competitor Mendham a whopping 28 points away in second place, there was much to celebrate. That night, numerous Green Wave runners placed in their events and set personal records, but what really caught everyone’s eyes was the last event of the night: the 4x400m relay. The coaches were not sure whether the team had enough points to guarantee a win, so a full strength relay of Paul Spada (‘18), Nick Mathus (‘17), Harrison Cooley (‘18), and Dillon O’loughlin (‘18)  were put out in that order. Incidentally, while waiting to check in the members of the relay did some quick calculations and determined that there was no way the team could lose the first place spot, no matter what happened in the relay. Talking this over we all re-affirmed that despite our guaranteed victory we were going to go all out. As we checked in, we also found out that we had been placed in the second heat which meant it would be even harder to run good times because we would likely be with many slower sprint teams. Despite the many reasons to not run well, each relay member put up amazing times. O’loughlin broke 50 seconds with his split of 49.9, while Spada, Mathus, and myself all ran personal record times. With great times all around, not only did we win our heat, but we ran the fastest time of the day coming in at 3:28.15.

Following this impressive feat, the whole team celebrated the victory with team photos, lots of snacks, and karaoke on the bus ride back to Delbarton. The celebrations were not over however, because our relay team found out we had likely qualified for the Private School Boys’ 4x400m relay at Millrose Games. The Millrose Games is the world’s longest running and most prestigious indoor track and field competition, and the relay team was justifiably excited to participate in the event. A few weeks after the county championship, the relay team headed down to the NYC Armory on a cold Saturday in February to compete in the Millrose Games. After a long wait, the team headed up to the third floor to compete on the track. Putting forward the same relay team that we’d run at counties, the team was fresh, confident, and ready to run. At first, the race started extremely well as Paul Spada took the lead. After a good handoff to Nick Mathus, the green wave held its position in first place but lost some of its lead. Then as Mathus came around to hand the baton to myself, we had a sloppy handoff which caused us to further lose our lead. I sprinted hard to make up lost time, but unfortunately, the second and third place teams caught me before I could hand off the baton to Dillon O’loughlin. As O’loughlin took the baton we knew we still had a chance since he is our fastest runner, but he had to pass two runners to regain our position in first place. Ultimately, despite O’loughlin’s valiant effort he was unable to reclaim first place and the team finished the race in third. While the team was disappointed due to our costly handoff and knowing we ran two seconds slower than our time at counties, we were glad to have competed at such a prestigious event. After cheering up, the team picked up some Millrose Games attire and snacks and headed back to Delbarton knowing we did our best. Ultimately, despite the disappointment the team, the team was proud to have competed, knowing that the last team to do so from Delbarton was over nine years ago. In retrospect, 3rd place out of all private schools was pretty great in itself, and the entire experience was one I’ll remember for a long time.