Records are made to be broken, right?
In the illustration above by artist Jared Hebert, we've indicated all the state records that have potential to be dumped (or broken) this weekend. We're confident at least three will be wiped out of the books. The three we feel will go down are the boys' hammer, the boys' 4x100m and the girls' 400m. Beginning with the hammer, Barrington's Bobby Colantonio has been chasing former Hendricken standout Jacob Freeman's 1999 record of 253-3 all season long and has twice come close with 250-plus foot efforts. His intention was to get this record last week at the Hendricken Invitational, but fouls on his opening two throws might have thrown him off track a little in his quest for the record. But it's his performance at the Hawk Invite that has us thinking Saturday could be the Eagle throwers' day. Rather than just throw a "safety throw" on his third attempt in the preliminaries to avoid the potential of fouling out, Colantonio let it rip and had a heave of 243 feet. He eventually topped that throw with a winning distance of 244-8 in the finals. Central has been all about speed this year and we're thinking that the Knights' quartet of Donatien Djero, Dametrius O'Connor, Franklin Marcado and Austin Wolo will take down the 4x100m record. At last week's Hendricken Invitational, this talented foursome broke the meet record with a time of 42.50, just three tenths of a second from the state mark of 42.2. All four agreed that their main focus is this weekend where they're hoping to possibly break 42 seconds. We think it will happen. The other record we believe will go down is the one-year-old state girls' 400m record of 55.44 by ex-Hope star Quashira McIntosh. The person that will do it is Classical's May Stern. At last week's Cumberland Invitational, she ran a time that converted to a 55.09 after her hand-held clocking of 54.80. With the state meet utilizing electronic timing, we predict she'll break the tape in under 55 seconds! The boys' long jump mark of 24-0.5 was set by Don Blount of Moses Brown back in 1936. Can South Kingstown's Anthony Shepard erase this 80-year-old record? He went further than Blount's mark at the Southern Division Championship on May 11 with a 24-1.75 effort. Due to the fact that there was no wind gage, that distance couldn't be recognized as a record. That will be a difficult one to match again but we're thinking at least a 23-footer is possible.