By Christopher Hunt
KINGS PARK – Nick Hughes turned the corner for the last 200 meters at Sunken Meadow Park glued to Port Washington’s Marco Bertolotti’s shoulder. They weren’t just looked to out-kick each other. Someone was going to break.
“I’m really confident in my kick,” the North Rockland junior said. “I knew I had a better kick than him. But he was right there.”
Hughes and Bertolotti cranked harder nearly until the finish line when Bertolotti faltered first and Hughes pulled away. Hughes won the Varsity A-1 race at the St. Anthony’s Invitational in 16:43.80, leading North Rockland to the team title with 33 points. Bertolotti was second in 16:50.48. It’s the third team victory of the season for North Rockland and its fourth straight impressive performance. They could four of the top six places.
Chris Carrington finished fourth for the Red Raiders in 17:09.06. Charlie Lagos followed in fifth in 17:11.25 and James Naglieri sixth in 17:11:64. Kevin Brophy rounded on the scoring in 17th (17:49.45).
“We really came into this feeling like we’re the best team,’’ Hughes said. “We came in with a lot of confident. We knew if we ran together we’d be OK.”
St. Anthony’s finished second in the race with 57 points and did a great job keeping the team tightly-packed. Patrick Murphy led the Friars in eighth (17:17.34) with Kenneth Walshak ninth (17:22.72) and Robert Cherkis 10th (17:33.58). Todd Sather was 12th and Brandon Keany 18th.
North Rockland jumped to fourth in the New York State Class AA rankings last week after placing fourth in the Reebok Challenge at the Carlisle Invitational last week in Pennsylvania. They proved deserved to be among the top on the list on the course were the state championships will be held next month.
David DeWan of Warwick Valley said his team came in with more to prove considering their seventh-place
rank in the state. Warwick Valley won the Varsity A-2 race with 32 points. DeWan led most of the race and won in 16:40.79, the fastest time of the day. Teammate Tim Luthin finished second in 16:56.29.
DeWan, a senior, led most of the way but his team was trailing Wantagh headed into the last mile when the Purple Wave’s backside group started to surge.
“Coming into this we were the underdogs,” DeWan said. “We really haven’t been able to put it together as a group but we came together today.”
Warwick Valley coach Mike Potter told his team they needed to match Wantagh man-for-man. Steve Peterson pumped his fist when caught Wantagh Thomas Clark just before the finish for ninth place (17:41.48). Warwick freshman Paddy Grandinali finished eighth in 17:29.60. James Wu decided the race for Warwick finishing 13th in 17:51.20, outdueling Wantagh’s fifth man, Chris Lewis, who finished 20th.
“They’re really inexperienced age-wise,” Potter said. “We’re taking it race by race and this is definitely a step in the right direction. This is definitely our best race of the season.”
Ward Melville’s girls were able to pull together as a team for the first team this season as well. They won the girls Varsity A-1 with 33 points. Freshman Caroline O’Hea led throughout in her first invitational of the season. She finished in 19:38.48, the fastest-time of the afternoon for girls. O’Hea suffered a groin injury over the season that hampered her for the end of summer and the first three weeks of the season. But she looked like she hadn’t missed a step Saturday.
“It was just about getting out there coming off the injury,” O’Hea said. “’We wanted to come out and run our best on our home course. The girls are just amazing. We really want to defend our (Suffolk County) title.”
Ward Melville is full of underclassmen and was still without Wendy Zhang, one of its top runners still 
recovering from injury. They put four in the top nine Saturday. Sophomore Sami Reilly was third in 20:12.90, Mary Kate Anselmini, also a sophomore, sixth in 20:40.03 and junior Brianna Araneo ninth in 21:15.62.
“This was kind of our coming out party,” coach Tom Youngs said. “This was great. The girls ran well. We’re really starting our racing season. We just have to stay healthy.”
Bronxville turned in the best team performance of the day. The Broncos won the girls Small Schools race with 23 points. Caitlin Hudson won the individual title for Bronxville in the last half mile, finishing in 20:07.90. Eighth-graders Amelia Phillips (20:39.77) and Meredith Rizzo (20:40.20) finished fourth and fifth respectively. Tori Flannery was seventh and Henreitta Miers 10th (21:10.97).
Bronxville showed their depth and versatility with a different look than last week when Miers and Flannery led the team at the DeWitt Clinton Invitational at Van Cortlandt Park. Bronxville coach Jim Mitchell told the team he wanted them to be more aggressive and not rest in the comfort of pack-running.
“I think we ran well,” Hudson said. “Mitchell wanted us to be aggressive and we were. I think we still tried to run together but everyone went after it a little on their own.”
Northport was also impressive in the girls Varsity A-2 race. The team won with 48 points led by eighth-grader Sarah Zieve, who finished fourth in 20:08.33. Junior Lianne Farber followed her in fifth in 20:21.62. Katie Sullian of Ursuline won the individual race in 19:42.85, the second-fastest time of the day.
“We wanted to stay together and run as a pack and run well,” Zieve said. “Sometimes we have problems 
with that but everyone really stayed together today.”
Northport coach Eric Visconti said it was his team’s best race of the season despite the fact that one of their top runners, Samantha D’amato dropped out of the race with an injury.
“Northport has never run this well this early in the season,” Visconti said. “We’re going to have a very good team.”
Irvington won the boys Small Schools race with 63 points led by Julian Saliani in third place finishing in 17:36.64. Seaford’s Joseph Lasher out-sprinted Robert Gorecki of Somers for the individual win. Lasher finished in 17:23.84 with Gorecki second in 17:26.86. Neither had a full team to qualify to score.
Reach Christopher Hunt at chunt@armorytrack.com.