West Deptford Reclaims 4x1600 Record, Third Overall at Home Relays

Setting a division record at the West Deptford Relays is pretty sweet when you’re the host team.

When it means erasing Haddonfield from the books, it’s that much sweeter.

The Eagles’ 4x1600 relay team set a blazing pace at their home meet Saturday, clocking a 22:54.11 to win the event by almost a minute over Buena and Haddonfield, and broke the Bulldawgs’ two-year-old record in the process.

It wasn’t by much—a mere 0.89 seconds, in fact—but it brought the relay record back to .

“It’s wonderful,” said Millie Kipp, who ran the opening leg. “To break any Haddonfield record is fantastic.”

Kipp put the Eagles in position early, clocking a 5:48 split to put the team in third before the first baton pass. Her early pace was important, as she was able to leave something in reserve for a push to try to get West Deptford near the front from the outset.

“I tried to get faster for my third and fourth laps,” Kipp said.

The Knoblock sisters—freshman Karen and junior Megan—followed, clocking 5:52 and 5:44, respectively, in their legs of the race, setting up a final push by senior Samantha Budd, who would need to pour on the speed to make her final West Deptford Relays a memorable one.

Budd didn’t disappoint.

She came out hard after the final pass, and as she rolled to the back stretch on the final 400, girls’ track head coach Mark Drummond shouted her on, knowing the record was within Budd’s sight.

The senior ended up running a 5:27 split, a personal record, to put her team down in the record books.

“I thought I was going a little fast, but I felt comfortable, so I just stayed with it,” Budd said afterward. “It was definitely an awesome meet for my last West Deptford Relays.”

For Drummond, getting the record back from Haddonfield was important, but maybe not as important as starting off the meet with a win on the track.

“It really got us rolling,” he said.

Still, getting one back from the Bulldawgs was something to celebrate.

“We’ve fought for that one for a while,” Drummond said. “That was big for us.”

It was a good showing overall for West Deptford on the day, as the team finished third overall in Division 2, behind Haddonfield and Buena.

Besides the win in the 4x1600, the Eagles won the pole vault (Claudia Theriault-Megan Kirschling-Elizabeth Douglas), took second in the distance medley relay (Kipp-Karen Knoblock-Megan Knoblock-Budd), second in the high jump (Kirschling-Theriault-Zoe Shannon) and second in the triple jump (Kirschling-Theriault-Nicole Pinto).

Drummond credited Theriault’s performance in the meet, which stretched across multiple events all across the stadium.

At one point, Theriault had to finish the pole vault, run one of the 200-meter legs of the sprint medley, make opening height of the high jump and get in three triple jumps all back-to-back.

“Claudia worked her butt off today,” Drummond said. “She’s a trouper.”

That willingness to go everywhere and do almost everything paid off—Theriault helped West Deptford score in all four events she entered, giving the team enough to hold off Willingboro and Sterling, the other teams in the top five in the division.

“If it wasn’t for her running all over the place, it wouldn’t have happened,” Drummond said.