Indoor Track: Pioneer girls break another record in Saturday’s meet
Another meet and another record – or two – for Pioneer’s amazing fabulous foursome.
Pioneer’s team of Sarah Forsyth, Emily Cooper, Cookie Baugh and Rachel Forsyth improved their time in the 4×800 relay to 8 minutes, 59.20 at the Saginaw Valley State University Distance Festival, part of the Michigan Indoor Track and Field Series.
However, that was after they shattered the National HS record in the Distance Medley Relay. They ran 11:21.95, beating the old record of 11:34.50 by 13 seconds set in 2017 by a team from Burke, Va.
The Michigan HS record was 11:35.98 set in 2013 by a team from Grosse Pointe South.
The team is known as the Purple Track Club and they destroyed the national high school girls distance medley relay record with their 11:21.95. However, this race took place on a 300-meter flat track, making the record void. Indoor records must be achieved on 200m tracks.
Sarah Forsyth posted the 1,200m split in 3:29.1; Cooper ran 61.7 over 400m; Baugh recorded a time of 2:12.0 in the 800m; and Rachel Forsyth closed the 1,600m in 4:38.7.
Rachel Forsyth’s final split would have been a new U.S. No. 1 in the 1,600m by 8 seconds. She already owns the nation’s top open 1,600m time of 4:44.20.
On Feb. 6, Pioneer’s 4×800 relay team set a Michigan High School record with a time of 9 minutes, 0.02 seconds at the Spire Scholastic Showcase meet in Geneva, Ohio. The previous record was 9:03.74 set by the team from Grosse Point South in 2012.
Pioneer Coach Nancy Boudreau said this is a “very special group of athletes.”
“These girls have been having a fantastic season this winter,” she said. “We knew they were in pretty good shape at the beginning of January, but we would never have predicted that they would be running so well at this time. They have all been training hard and they just love running relays together.”
The Pioneers have a couple more indoor meets to run in the coming weeks, including the New Balance Nationals in New York City the weekend of March 11-13. The Pioneer foursome is planning to run the 4×800, 4×1 mile, and Distance Medley Relay (1200-400-800-1600).
