In stunner, Tuohy loses lead and Millrose mile during last lap; Flynn w/personal best

NEW YORK -- No recent race, at least on the local high school level, went off script as much as Saturday’s Millrose Games girls high school mile.

Katelyn Tuohy, the country’s top female high school runner and a decided race favorite, led early on, expanded her lead, but started yielding yardage with two laps to go before being passed by three runners.

The 15-year-old North Rockland sophomore, competing in her first individual race the famed indoor track meet finished in 4:47.10.

Gabrielle Wilkinson of Wynnewood, PA, who exploded during the last lap, won in a personal-best 4:42.94 before a stunned crowd of 5,500 at the Armory.

PREVIOUSLY: Tuohy heads for huge stage in running Millrose Games HS mile

PHENOM: Tuohy sets U.S., world record marks at Virginia Showcase

EDITORIAL: North Rockland runner keeps winning, having fun

Saratoga’s Kelsey Chmiel, the runner-up to Tuohy at the Nike Nationals girls cross-country championship, was second in a personal-best 4:44.55 and Dillsbury, PA’s Marlee Starliper was third (personal-best 4:44.97).

Ursuline’s Lily Flynn finished fifth in 4:50.38. That was more than three seconds better than her previous personal-best time and was the second fastest all-time mile run by a female high school student from Westchester.

Former Bronxville runner Mary Cain owns the record at 4:28.25.

Flynn’s 4:30.96 1,500 time during the mile was also the third fastest ever clocked by a Section 1 girl.

“Amazing,” Ursuline coach Jan Mitchell said.

But what seemed even more amazing was Tuohy surrendering a lead. That had never happened during either this past fall’s cross-country season, where she went undefeated and during track season.

Tuohy entered the race having broken multiple Cain cross-country and track records and having run the fastest indoor girls mile this year – 4:43.62, set at last month’s Millrose Games Trials.

She wasn’t available for comment after the race.

Her coach, Brian Diglio, said Tuohy, who has drawn much national attention in recent months and Thursday was named one of three finalists for the national Gatorade Girls Cross-Country Player of the Year Award, was very upset with the outcome, especially with expectations for her so high.

Despite her lead, Diglio knew early on something was wrong.

Aiming to break 4:40, she was behind her projected 800-meter split by three seconds, he noted. She completed 809 meters in 2:19.18.

Diglio rushed to the finish well before Tuohy relinquished her lead, worried she was injured.

In fact, his concern began after just 400 meters.

He said after the race she reported she never felt right but was unhurt.

“She was struggling from the beginning,” Diglio said. … “She didn’t have it.”

But Diglio also credited her opponents in the 13-athlete race, saying they had run smart and never allowed Tuohy to get too far in front.

“You show any weakness and they’ll pounce,” he said.

“It’s a tough loss for Katelyn,” Diglio said. “You don’t always win. Part of being a great runner is learning how to lose. This is pretty big adversity today and a bitter pill to swallow.”

Other local finishers

While Tuohy’s race was a shocker, North Rockland earlier displayed its athletic depth in the girls 4x400 relay.

Running for the first time together as a relay team, Ivana Lopez, Torre Inzar, Jahlyah Goodbee and Sofia Housman clocked 3:56.40 for second place in the suburban girls 4x400.

New Rochelle was fourth (3:58.67) and Lakeland/Panas was fifth (4:06.20).

Winslow Township, NJ won in 3:54.99.

Lopez, a senior like Housman, called the win “really special.”

“We’ve been working so hard this season. I think we’ve proved everyone wrong,” she said.

Inzar and Goodbee were new additions to the team.

The two were transferred from North Rockland’s second girls 4x400 team to its top team based on their performance when North Rockland ran two 4x400 squads at the Millrose Trials.

Monroe College’s Dante Williams, Kasique Oliver, Timothy Epps and Elijah Young combined to win the men’s Metro College 4x400 relay in 3:20.07.

While pleased to win, Young said the four could have done better and should run 3:12 before the end of the season.

The USA team of Chrishuna Williams, Raevyn Rogers, Charlene Lipsey, Ajee' Wilson broke a nearly seven-year-old Russian-held indoor world record in the women’s 4x800 relay.

The four ran 8:05.89. The record had been 8:06.74.

The team got a push from the second-place NY All Stars (8:11.45).

That squad included Kendra Chambers, Lynsey Sharp and HOKA NJ-NY Track Club members Ce’aira Brown and Cecilia Barowski.

The HOKA club trains mostly at the Armory during the winter and at Masters School in Dobbs Ferry the rest of the year.

But the NY All Stars had never run as a unit before Saturday’s race.

“I just met the girls tonight,” Barowski said with a laugh, noting she may have raced against Sharp once or twice.

She added the relay was “lower pressure and more fun” than her previous Millrose experience, running the women’s open 800.

“You just learn (how to pass the baton) in high school and college,” said Brown, who lives in Tarrytown.

She added the team’s goal was to “stay focused, stay close, just go after it and run smart.”

Iona College was sixth in the race in 9:07.47.

The men’s Wanamaker Mile went to Great Britain’s Chris O’Hare in 3:54.14. Hastings’ Kyle Merber, last year’s bronze medalist who runs for the NJ-NY Track Club, clocked 3:57.75 for sixth.

Marist College's Lauren Harris finished in 6:52.55 to for fourth out of 10 in the women's racewalk.

Arlington High (Kyle VanDermark, Tyler Locke, Colin Waters and Mark Scanlon) was sixth out of 11 in the boys invitational 4x800 relay in 8:04.39. FDR of Hyde Park was eighth (8:06.15) and Horace Greeley ninth (8:07.61).

Rob Napolitano of the NJ-NY Track Club ran his second fastest mile, finishing in 4:00.02 for sixth place in the men’s lower-seed mile.

Part of Millrose’s appeal is its vast range of athletes – grade-schoolers to masters athletes and amateurs to pros.

Carmel senior Jade Sessions, who clocked 2:14.73, the third fastest 800 leg out of 40 runners in the New Balance girls 4x800 invitational relay, noted she was looking forward to watching the pros run.

“It’s definitely different,” she said of Millrose. “It’s a unique experience being around great competitors.”

Bronxville finished eighth in the 4x800 in 9:23.65 and Carmel was ninth (9:25.49).

Strath Haven, PA won in 9:11.19.

Somers senior Greg Fusco ran 4:19.42 for 11th place in the boys mile.

The time was not a personal best and Fusco, who’ll run next year for Cornell, said, “I’ve got a lot to improve on. … I know I have a lot more in me.”

But competing at the 111-year-old meet was still special.

“It means a lot,” he said. “I’ve been dreaming of running this since I was 4 years old.”

In younger youth races, Giordano Simpson of Cortlandt ran 8.32 for fifth in the New York Road Runners Club Fastest Kid in the World 55-meter race. He represented Jamaica.

Juliette Salazar, 12, of Peekskill and the New York Stars running club clocked 1:03.55 for sixth in the girls youth 400.

Salazar, a Peekskill Middle School seventh-grader, said she hopes to run longer distances at Millrose.

In other results, Kenyan Emmanuel Korir won a fast men’s 800 in 1:44.21. Jesse Garn of White Plains and the NJ-NY Track Club crossed in 1:47.58 for sixth.

Monroe College was seventh in the men’s distance medley relay in 10:26.19. Monroe was also ninth in the women’s DMR (12:37.06).

Twitter: @HaggertyNancy