By Christopher Hunt
NEW YORK – You couldn’t blame them if they passed on the victory lap. They had done enough running for one day.
Then Cardozo coach Gail Emmanuel seemed fatigued when it was over. No one ever accused her squad of being deep but what the Judges do have is a density of talent and that small crew, like the small crews before them, led Cardozo to its third consecutive PSAL city championship Saturday at Ichan Stadium on Randalls Island.
“Determination and heart,” senior Tessa West said. That’s what she called it.
It’s not a new storyline. Cardozo took a small group of runners and outmanned the field, winning with 88 points. Christopher Columbus was the closest team finishing second with 48. For some of Cardozo runners, the race schedule looked more like an agenda. Freshman Lateisha Philson, for example, ran six races including trials and finals. Claudia Francis ran three but those races added up to almost two all-out miles.
West, who committed to Temple, just missed qualifying for the final of the 400 then ran back-to-back finals in the 4x100 and 4x400.
“Our main thing is that the eyes were set on the goals,” Cardozo coach Gail Emmanuel said. “The mindset is championship. We have states. We’ll run at nationals. All of this is preparation for those rounds. We have to keep that mindset.”
Francis won the 800 in 2:11.30 then when she looked out of the race with 600 to go in the 1,500, she found another push in the final lap to win that race as well in 4:44.30. Then she ran the second leg off the 4x400, a team that won 3:58.33.
“All I do is try to practice hard and try to do my best and run a good time,” she said.
Philson managed two rounds each of the 200, 100 hurdles and 4x100. The freshman won the 100 hurdles in 14.40, finished second in the 200 in 24.69. West, Philson, Alexis Mapson and Ahtyana Johnson were second in the 4x100 in 48.31. Sophomore Chamique Francis, who is at the tail end of an injury-filled season – she sat out a month with a quadriceps injury to her right leg then strained her left hamstring in dance class two weeks ago – ran the trials of the 4x100, anchored the 4x400 and won the 400 in 54.78. Johnson, who also ran the rounds of the 4x100, finished second in 55.76.
Chamique Francis admitted that she was cautious on the back straightaway and not as aggressive as she would have been in the home stretch if her left leg was healthy.
“I felt my leg tighten up,” Francis said. “But I also knew that Ahty would be there to push me. I knew that she would go out hard so I had to get out. When I got to (the 150 mark) I really wanted to kick but I didn’t want to hurt myself.”
She said she believed she’ll be healthy to run the 400 at the state meet next weekend at Cicero-North Syracuse. Emmanuel also said that she’ll give the team a break in order to keep their bodies intact for Nike Outdoor Nationals in two weeks. She said Claudia Francis will likely only run the 800 and that the 4x400 team, which holds the fastest time in the country this season, will not compete at the state meet.
While Cardozo dominated the team race they could not overshadow an unbelievable race by Columbus’s Whitney Fountain. The powerhouse junior broke the New York State junior class 200-meter record and the PSAL record, winning in 23.44. First Fountain rocketed out the starting blocks and demolished the stagger.
“I wanted that start,” she said. “I’m proud of that start.”
Then she torpedoed down the straightaway. It was impressive enough that it seemed the crowd didn’t know whether to cheer or stare silently. Fountain herself was mostly speechless when she crossed the finish line, outside of all the things her widening smile said for her. Fountain actually showed up late to the starting line. She rushed drop her sweats and set her starting blocks, all of which may have helped her “clear the mechanism,” as she called it.
“I just didn’t think about anything,” she said. “I just wanted to clear my mind.”
Her time bettered a PSAL record set by Natasha Hastings (A.P. Randolph) of 23.73 in 2001 and a state class record of 23.66 set by Angela Williams of St. Joseph’s in Brooklyn in 1982.
“I’m trying to hit 22,” Fountain said. “I know I can do it.”
Reach Christopher Hunt at chunt@armorytrack.com.