NEW YORK – St. John Villa coach Mike Proffitt was honest when he said he didn’t show up to Van Cortlandt Park expecting his team to leave with a win. But while three of his top runners resting for the weekend it couldn’t have been better to walk away with a victory in his pocket.
“They ran great,” Proffitt said after his team won the Villa Bears Invitational with 45 points while Bronxville finished second with 71. “Even if they didn’t’ win I thought they ran great. We just wanted to get off on the right foot.”
Twins Dominque and Mariah Claudio, two legs from Villa’s indoor national championship 4x800, and Alyssa Dorney, all attended the meet but never took their sweats off. The win not only showed Villa’s depth but that once Proffitt puts his full team on the starting line, they can be a competitive and dangerous team.
“This year we’re a whole different team,” said senior Alexis Bivona, who finished fifth to lead Villa in 16:24.5 on the 2.5-mile course. “This is the year that we want to achieve all our goals, especially for those of us that are seniors.”
What’s impressive that is that Villa, especially not at full strength, was able to beat Bronxville, which Proffitt said was huge for the program. Samantha Lauro finished right behind Bivona in sixth in 16:27.4 with Dana Mannarino and Dannielle iacampo 10th and 11th, respectively.
“It’s a shocker to me and it feels so good,” Bivona said. “We’re a little team and everyone always underestimates us. I think we went out there and made a statement. We might have a small team but we’re a lot better than people think we are.”
“One of my teammates’ parents was in the back and he told me that she’s was dying up there so I thought that maybe I could catch her.”
Schmidt spotted Miers just before the last downhill that leads to a 1200-meter home stretch. Schmidt picked up Miers on the downhill and used the momentum to put the race away.
“I was trying to catch her the whole race,” Schmidt said. “The whole race I thought I wasn’t going to catch her.”
Schmidt, a junior, said she really focused on her summer training the past few months and feels stronger and more fit than ever, partly because “my parents and coach told me that this is the year for colleges to start looking at you so I really wanted to step it up.”
Vargas and Rosas ran away with the race from the beginning.
“We went a litter easier in the beginning,” Rosas said. “We worked the hills a little bit and we just worked together. After a while we thought someone would come up but we didn’t’ hear any footsteps.
“Every year we try to have the highest goal we can that’s possible,” Rosas said. “We look forward to trying to make it to nationals. This is just a step toward that. Today we wanted to see what we got. We wanted to see how well we can run tired.”
Reach Christopher Hunt at chunt@armorytrack.com.
photos by Tim Fulton