Tauranga speedster Ollie Ranby overturned a recent barren spell with a triumphant finish at the North Island secondary schools meet yesterday, winning the senior boys' 200m and bringing home the open boys' 4x400m relay for his Waikato-Bay of Plenty team.
With Waikato-Bay hosting the season's closing event at Tauranga Domain, the Tauranga Boys' student shook off the dismay of being disqualified from Saturday's senior boys' 400m final to edge out school and regional teammate Alex Colvin in the 200m decider, clocking 23.07secs to win by .09sec.
In a finish that was representative of Waikato-Bay of Plenty's sprint dominance, their regional teammate Michael Gutry of Hamilton rounded out the race's top-three.
Scratched from the 400m showdown for failing to heed the starter's "set" instruction - and only managing seventh in M17 200m at last weekend's club nationals - Ranby was rapt to reverse his fortunes in the last two boys' events of the schools meet.
"I'm pretty happy to finish with those two results. It's a fantastic way to end my season.
"At the start of the 400 I didn't hear the 'set' call clearly, I heard something but wasn't sure that was the call," Ranby explained. "Rules are rules, I'm disappointed in myself mostly."
In the senior girls' sprints there was double delight for Waikato-Bay's Molly Florence, the Rotorua athlete taking out both the 100m and 200m events, clocking 12.36secs in the shorter distance on Saturday and 25.01secs in yesterday's 200m final. Training in Tauranga under sprint specialist Todd Blythe, Florence was under pressure in the final metres of the 200m decider to cross 0.39secs ahead of Waikato-Bay teammate Ellie McCleery.
"It's been a great meet for me, I'm really happy to have made the double. It's the last competition of the summer so I wanted to put everything into it," Florence said.
Crossing 0.39sec behind Florence was another fleet-footed Waikato-Bay of Plenty runner Ellie McCleery of Hamilton.
Florence's achievements are all the more remarkable considering that the past 12 months have been her athletics debut, the 16-year-old changing direction as she recovered from a bad ankle injury suffered in her previous sport of trampolining.
The record-breaking glory of the meet belonged to Auckland's Dalton Coppins, who blazed the 100m in 10.78secs on Saturday to set a new national M16 time.
Tauranga's Michael Booth came home third with 11.41secs, Coppins' time easily bettering the previous North Island secondary schools record of 10.87secs, which had stood since 1999.
The senior boys' 3000m was one of yesterday's highlights, Waikato-Bay of Plenty's Scott Hilliar (Hamilton) pushing Wellingtonian Kieron McDonald hard all the way, McDonald smashing the North Island schools record by 3secs with a time of 3:53:15 and Hilliar just 0.4sec in arrears.
Recovering from triathlon competition on Thursday, Tauranga's Alice McFall slipped off the pace late in the girls' 4000m open steeplechase to place fourth.
Waikato-Bay of Plenty hammered home its sprint ascendancy with victory in both the open boys' and girls' 4x400m relays to polish off the season yesterday.
Among Waikato-Bay's successes in field events, Luke Davison took out the senior boys' high jump on countback after clearing 1.90m, while Colvin finished second in the long jump with a leap of 6.91m.
Other Tauranga athletes to achieve top-three track placings included sisters Jessica and Samantha Bitcheno, Jessica finishing third in the intermediate girls' 800m and Samantha filling the same spot in the junior girls' 100m.
Abby Goldie ran well to be runner-up in the intermediate girls' 100m, but couldn't reproduce that form in yesterday's 200m and finished fourth, while Davison came home third in the senior boys' 110m hurdles.