Somerville High School Junior Andre Rolim’s achievements continue unabated.

Last year, winning at the New England Championship meet, Andre Rolim ran the fourth best 600 meter race time ever recorded by a Massachusetts high school athlete (1:20.75), which was quite an achievement. This past Sunday at the MIAA All-State championship track meet, Andre took another step forward, following through with a plan that resulted in him breaking the Massachusetts All-Time record recorded by Christopher Bonner in 2002 (1:20.11).

Rolim, a Junior at SHS, led the 600m race from the start, hit all his predetermined split times and reached his goal of breaking 1 minute 20 seconds with a finish time of 1:19.94- almost 3 seconds better than his closest competitor. He is the new MIAA All-State meet record holder, besting Nick Wade’s 2009 meet record time of 1:20.89. He becomes the new Massachusetts state record holder, besting Olympic trials qualifier and former Arkansas University All-American Said Ahmed-2001, along with Bill Speirdowis/Foxboro, 1998 and Chris Bonner, 2002, and two time MIAA All-State Champion.

Knowing he had done the work to reach his goal was certain and rewarding in itself but actually seeing it all come together in front of 4000 fans was priceless. Rolim will next run on Friday night at the New England Championship meet.

Also competing at the All-State meet was Lyndon Kaba, who placed 14th overall with a time of 6.77 in the 55m dash.  Lyndon, who broke the SHS 50 yard dash record this year (5.5), had some difficulty with his starting blocks. He was understandably frustrated knowing that running a time near what he recorded in the last two weeks (6.64) would have led him to a top six medal and a chance to compete at the NE meet.