open digital edition
By Dave Clark
For the Express
The girls and boys varsity track teams had only one track meet this past week at Sauquoit on Thursday, May 1. The Tuesday meet scheduled at Morrisville was postponed due to the cold and damp day.
The meet on Thursday was against two very strong teams, Sauquoit and Westmoreland. The good thing about this meet was that we will not have to meet up against these two teams again this year. Both teams play in the toughest division of the CSC League and will be title contenders for division honors.
Held on the new beautiful field at Sauquoit, the weather conditions and field conditions were almost ideal for the athletes. Sauquoit dominated the girls competition with Westmoreland coming in second. Old Forge was led by Caitlin Bailey who finished second in the l00 meter high hurdles in l9.3 and third in the 400 hurdles in 78.6 and by Maddie Phaneuf who finished second in the l500 run in 5:53 and third in the 800 run in 2:54.1 Lizzy Getty, high jumping for the first time, cleared 4’ and placed third against Westmoreland.
Phaneuf is a seventh grader and Getty and Bailey are eighth graders.
The boys also found the competition very hard, but it proved to help them as Coach Tim Leach continued to experiment and it proved beneficial. Anyone who placed in this meet did a very good job, and when they meet other class D schools, it will be very beneficial. Sauquoit won the meet by a slim margin over Westmoreland.
Some of the glaring weaknesses shown in the teams’ previous meet at Adirondack showed some improvement. The team showed improvement in depth in the hurdles and the pole vault, and they improved their times and distances in the long jump, shot put, triple jump, high jump, discus, 800 meter run and the 3200 meter run. These were the areas they had to improve in and they still need to work hard to improve. Still, there are holes that must be filled in the 400, 800, l600 and 3200 runs. The only way to improve in those areas is for the kids running those events to work harder.
In the team scoring, they were led by senior, Adam Josephson. Josephson, who also plays baseball, had to practice Sunday on the long jump to see if we could improve in that event. For the first time out, he did very well as he jumped l8’ and placed second overall. Josephson hit the ninth hurdle in the high hurdles and broke his rhythm to place second with a good time of l7.8. He had a personal best jump in the triple jump of 37’5” to place second by l l/2” to a Sauquoit jumper. Josephson also had a personal best jump in the high jump as he cleared 5’10” and won that event. Anytime the bar is set over your head and you clear that height, it is a good jump.
Leif Frymire placed second in the l00 meter dash in ll.9 and found the competition very tough in the 200 as he failed to place even though he ran a fine 24.7 time. Josh Mahoney won the pole vault with a 9’6” vault, improved his time in the high hurdles to l9.5, and added some strength in the discus. Kevin Kress placed fourth in the l00 with a l2.3 time, second in the 400 hurdles in 66.1 and tied for second in the high jump with a personal best jump of 5’8”. Not bad for an eighth grader.
Troy Walley ran a 2:18 in the opening leg of the 4 x 800 relay and showed evidence he could improve on that time. Walley improved on the 3200 run by running an 11:58, and he should definitely improve on that time. Connor Rockhill tried pole vaulting for the first time and cleared 7’6” to place third. His brother, Billy, tried the 400 hurdles for the first time and had a competitive time of 70.1. Alex Getty should help the team in the longer running races and shows promise in the triple jump. The biggest improvement came in the shot and discus by Tory Delacruz. Last week, he threw only 32’ in the shot, but against Sauquoit he improved his throw to a very competitive 37’3”. Delacruz also improved his discus throw by 20’ and should improve on that this coming week.
Running against good competition can only help them as they start to compete against teams in their own division and prepare for the league championship meet. J