By Avonlea Cummings
Hometown Weekly Sports Reporter
Medfield track and field has had an outstanding 2023-2024 spring season. With athletes who have broken school records and represented Medfield at the Tri-Valley League showcase, the Warriors have pushed through the end of the season strongly, closing their regular season with a 3-2 record.
Winning three consecutive meets back to back against Westwood, Norwood, and Ashland, Medfield set themselves up in full momentum headed into the Tri-Valley League Showcase on Tuesday, May 14th. Prior to their showcase, the Warriors kickstarted their momentum by competing in the Division Four Relay Meet on Saturday, April 27th. In the Division Four relays, Medfield placed ninth and secured two new school records at the meet. In the discus, Mike O’Reilly, Aidan Ryan, and Declan Frazier beat their school record with a 338’8” distance. In the long jump, Julian Ram Tylerbest, Travis Grodzicki, and Kyle Kraemer beat another one of Medfield’s school records with a 58’6” distance.
The track and field season typically has two halves of a spring season. The first five to six weeks are when teams compete in dual meets, with all 55-60 athletes on each team competing. The second half is the championship phase of the season, kicking off with the Tri-Valley League Showcase, where all twelve teams gather together and compete their top two athletes in each event, or even place a third or fourth athlete in an event if they are positioned in the top 15 of the TVL. Typically, about 25 athletes will compete in the TVL showcase, and as the following meets become more competitive and challenging, select individual athletes will continue to compete.
Medfield competed at the TVL Showcase on Tuesday, May 14th and placed seventh out of the twelve teams. For field events, in the javelin, Roman Schoenfeld placed top sixth with 131’0”. In shot put, Aidan Ryan placed fourth at 43’ 3.5”, in high jump, Julian Ram Tylerbest placed second with 5’8”, and Ram - Tylerbest placed third in the long jump with a 20’ 6.5” distance. Alongside Ram - Tylerbest in the long jump was Travis Grodzicki, who placed fifth in the event with 19’ 2”. Competing in the discus event, Mike O’Reilly placed second with 136’ 11”. In the running events, in the 400 m, Jack Daley placed sixth with a 54.28 time, and Kyle Kraemer received a 15.97 time for the 110HH event, placing fourth.
Head coach Michael Kraemer shared that the strategy behind the Tri-Valley Showcase is different compared to preparing for dual meets at the beginning of the season. It is about placing each athlete in an event where you know they will succeed the best: “For the showcase with all twelve teams coming together, it’s really about putting your pieces where they are going to be able to perform their best… When you put all twelve teams together, you are focusing on the strength of your athlete,” said Kraemer.
The Warriors are led by Kraemer, two assistant coaches, and four senior captains. The team’s senior captains, Aidan Bunelli, Nathan Malvese, Julian Ram Tylerbest, and Matt Stevens, are relied upon to lead by example and assist with carrying out the workouts at practice. “The captains have been great leaders. They help with warmups and running the workouts… Coaches make up the workouts… but the captains are making sure the workout is carried out the way it’s intended to and making sure the kids are being serious and putting forth their best effort. I think they model that to the rest of the team, and the team has followed them really well,” said Kraemer.
Coach Kraemer has been a part of the Medfield track and field program for 31 years, both as an assistant and head coach. He reflected on his time with the program, mentioning one thing that has always been consistent: just how many student-athletes participate in the sport. “One thing that has stayed constant is that a lot of kids participate. There are some sports where there are cuts and only a limited number of kids on each team. Track has been nice because it’s a place where there’s almost a mindset in Medfield that kids are staying connected in one way or another to the extracurriculars of school. They might have grown up playing basketball or lacrosse; instead of stopping one sport, they’ll make a transition to another sport. So we have every year there are people who have never done track, and then they come out and find out they're very good at track. There’s a place for a lot of different talents to be important on the team. It’s a place where most people can find something they enjoy,” said Kraemer.
