Several local athletes found success at two national indoor track meets last week in Boston and New York.

First, at the Nike Indoor National Meet in Boston, Interscholastic Athletic Association of Maryland team champion McDonogh did very well. The group of Kristen Brown, Jessica Caldwell, Jasmine Robinson and Autumne Franklin combined to finish first in the hurdle relay to win an indoor national championship.

McDonogh coach Jeff Sanborn said that the Eagles' winning time of 33.42 seconds ranks in the Top 10 of times ever run and gave them a victory margin of 1.24 seconds over a team from New Rochelle, N.Y.

An hour later, Brown and Robinson combined with Jordyn Glaser and Madeline Dulac to finish in seventh place in the sprint medley. They ended up .24 of a second out of sixth place -- which would have earned them All-American status.

Caldwell also finished third in the triple jump, and Brown took sixth in the 60-meter high hurdles while Justin Gross was third in the long jump. Each got All-American honors.

Tommy Butler of Francis Scott Key also had a big weekend. The Class 2A state champion in the high jump got a personal best of 6 feet, 8.25 inches, earning him third place and All-American honors.

He actually tied Tanner Anderson for second place. But since Anderson cleared it on his first jump and Butler did it on his last, the tie-breaker for second went to Anderson.

Archbishop Curley freshman Kyle Hunt won his heat of the freshman 400 in 54.08 and finished sixth overall to also get All-American status.

Kikanae Punyua of Wilde Lake continued his storybook season by running a personal best at the National Scholastic Indoor championships in New York. The Kenyan, who just took up running six months ago, ran 9:16 to earn All-American status there.

That was 20 seconds better than Punyua had ever run before.

-- Jeff Seidel