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Donahue, Walsh pace Central at Haverhill Invite

Saturday, April, 16 By Jeff Hamrick

HAVERHILL — On a day that left most participants wishing it was still the indoor season, Central Catholic got a couple big wins and enough placers to win the 34th annual John Ottaviani Haverhill Invitational yesterday afternoon.

“You know that it’s going to be cold, and you know you’re not going to see great times,” said Central coach Sully Grella, whose squad racked up 62 points to outdistance Whitman-Hanson (53) and St. John’s Prep (52). “But we just always tell the kids to compete. It’s about places and points, and they know that.”

Senior Brad Donahue claimed honors in the 400-meter hurdles and Cam Walsh won the pole vault for the Raiders. But Central got the bulk of its scoring in the field events.

“The field events is why we had a great day,” Grella said. “We had multiple placers in the triple jump, the pole vault and the shot. When you have a meet like this with 20 teams, double scoring in an event is a difficult thing to do. And that was really big for us today.”

With temperatures never topping 42 and a cold gusting wind, the grueling 400-meter hurdles were made even tougher, but Donahue got Central off on a good foot with a time of 60.24, almost half a second faster than runner-up Vinny Maniscalco of Chelmsford.

“I felt good actually coming down the straight away,” Donahue said. “The (wind) was rough, but at the turn I was feeling pretty good. Every single meet we’ve had has been windy. My coach put me in the first lane, and I just had to win it. I wasn’t really too worried about a time to be honest because I’m going to have better days than this.”

Although conditions kept him from posting a faster time, the Central Catholic senior is more concerned about the future.

“Right now, my best time (this season) is 59.3, but I want to be under 57 by at least state,” said Donahue, who has a personal best of 57.75. “I just have to work hard in practice and keep healthy.”

Lawrence also had a couple of winners with Kelvin Severino in the 100 and Malcom Rodriguez in the high jump. Salem’s Jerickson Fedrick was on a recruiting visit at the University of Connecticut, but the 100 field still was heavy on talent as Haverhill sophomore Alex Mayhew was third, Salem’s Max Jacques sixth and Pinkerton’s Emmitt Smith sixth, all within .34 of Severino’s winning time of 11.20.

“It was cold and I had to stay warm,” Severino said. “And I had some good competition, so I had to run hard. I was hoping for an 11 flat., and I was hoping (Fedrick) came because the more competition the better.”

Other area winners were Jacques in the long jump and Dan Cormier of Methuen in the shot put. Lawrence finished sixth with 35 points followed by Methuen in seventh with 34. Salem tied for eighth while Haverhill was 12th, Pinkerton 14th and Londonderry 16th.