State Boys: Flahn, Edokpolo bring home gold

PLYMOUTH, NH — Champions know how to save their best performances for the biggest stage.

Central senior Caesar Flahn and Trinity senior Rere Edokpolo did exactly that, walking away with two gold medals each at the NHIAA Indoor Track and Field Championships, Saturday at Plymouth State.

Flahn took first place in the Division 1 55m in a blistering time of 6.40 seconds. It was the best time in the state this season. He also ran the first leg of the Little Green’s winning 4x200m relay team.

Edokpolo was consistently outstanding in winning his second straight Division 2 long jump, with a best leap of 21-10.00 on his third attempt. It was the best jump of any athlete in either division.

Central placed 8th as a team in Division 1 with 28 points. Pinkerton took home the State Title with 71.

Trinity placed tied for 5th in Division 2 with 26 points. Milford won the team title with 51.

The most impressive, and somewhat surprising, performance of the day was turned in by Central’s 4x200m relay team. Just two weeks prior, the Little Green had been beaten by Pinkerton in a regular season meet.

Since then, they squad had lost one runner to academics and was forced to regroup and shuffle its order. For a relay team, which relies on precision timing with handoffs, this should have been a problem.

Not for Central.

With Flahn running leadoff, Central grabbed an early lead. Kaedin Gagne and Wyatt Forguere lost a bit of ground but held first.

That left things in the hands of Sean Venator, who was matched against Pinkerton’s All-State Matthew Morrison. Roughly an hour earlier, Flahn had beaten Morrison in a photo finish in the 55m.

As the runners came around the final turn, Morrison was riding Venator’s shoulder and looked to be in position to pass. But Venator dug deep and held on to give Central the win by a mere three one-hundredths of a second (1:32.07 — 1:32.10).

It capped a strong day for Venator, who also scored points with a sixth place finish in the long jump (20-00.00) and sixth in the 300m (36.88).

Gagne scored points with a third place finish in the 300m (36.09).

For Trinity’s Edokpolo, his championship performance was, by far, his best showing of the season. Just as he did a year ago, he came out on top in a duel with John Stark’s Rio Calle (21-08.50).

To put an exclamation point on the day, Edokpolo teamed with brother Ewa Edokpolo, Davey Durepo and Anthony DiGiantommaso to win gold in the 4x200m relay in 1:35.24.

DiGiantommaso also scored points with a third place finish in the 55m (6.69).