BURLINGTON — For the past few months, Mount Anthony sophomore Rebecca Crosier was a major cog of a successful Mount Anthony girls lacrosse team.
This week, she returned to her second home, the track, at the 43rd Jerry Jasinski VT State Decathlon at the University of Vermont, Monday and Tuesday afternoon.
Crosier didn't miss a beat and finished third in the decathlon. Along the way, she set a girls school record with a decathlon point total 4,569.
The sophomore was strong across the board of the 10 events. Her best finish came in the 100 m dash, where she finished in second with a time of 13.14 seconds, just 0.14 seconds off the state record time set by first-place finisher Hannah Wescott of St. Johnsbury.
Crosier also picked up top 10 finishes in the long jump (4th), 400 m dash (4th), pole vault (5th), 100 m hurdles (6th) and high jump (9th).
With her lacrosse season just ending a few weeks ago, Crosier only had two weeks to prepare for the event. MAU coach Amanda Mullen was impressed with the sophomore's ability to be prepared in such a short time.
"She came out strong and she picked up a lot of the events really quickly," Mullen said. "Yesterday, she had a really strong day and she came in today on a really positive note."
Crosier broke the school record for most points during the second of the event on Tuesday and shattered the record by 1600 points by day's end.
Mullen made sure to give some of the credit to Crosier's teammates, who were very helpful to get Crosier ready for the event.
"A lot of our kids were helping her in each of their individual events," Mullen said. "Them all coming together to help in their really strong events was really nice to see."
Senior Skyler Hoyt had a strong couple days as well for MAU, finishing fifth in this year's decathlon.
Hoyt was consistent across the board and picked up multiple top 10 finishes along the way. In the pole vault, Hoyt finished tied for fifth with a jump of 10 feet, 4.75 inches. He also had top 10 finishes in the 400 m dash (8th), long jump (8th), discus throw (9th) and high jump (10th).
Mullen was impressed with Hoyt's team-centric approach Monday and Tuesday.
"He wanted to do really individually, but he also saw what the team needed," Mullen said. "One of our big goals was to finish as high as could as a team. Beating St. Johnsbury was a pretty big deal for us and Skyler was a really big part of that."
As a team, the Patriots boys squad finished second, while the girls finished eighth overall. Mount Mansfield topped MAU on the boys side by 12 points, while St. Johnsbury was the winner on the girls side.
Rain caused some issues with the event on Monday and delayed some of the events, but that didn't effect the Patriots too much. Across the board, MAU had strong performances out of every athlete they had competing this week.
After Hoyt on the boys side, Gavin Johnson finished 14th, Austin Buttle was 16th, Cooper Mason was 37th, Evan Page was 41st and Owen Maroney was 63rd.
After Crosier on the girls side, Aditi Patel was 48th and Morgan Prouty was 57th.
Johnson had a strong day in the shot put, finishing in third place. He also picked up top 10 finishes in the javelin throw (5th), 100 m dash (7th) and discus throw (8th).
Page was third in the 1500 m race, while Mason took seventh. Buttle placed eighth in the pole vault.
On top of the decathlon, MAU also had a few athletes competing in the 2000 m steeplechase. Shawn Tobin finished third with a time of 6:43.98. Mattheu Longtin finished eighth.
"It was a very interesting day overall, so to see them go out and compete with some of the best distances runners in the state and do very well was great to see," Mullen said.
Adam Aucoin can be reached at aaucoin@benningtonbanner.com and followed at @AAucoin_Banner on Twitter.
