Boys Spotlight
**Due to a lower number of top returning athletes due to graduation, the boys preview is a bit shorter than the girls preview**
There are a lot of big changes coming at the top of Class A Boys this year. The top five individuals from the State Qualifier graduated from 2021 but strong spring track seasons from some runners by last year's underclassmen will pick up right where the section left off.
Timothy Sheahan from Northport is the top returner and after his 4:18 1600 and section title in the Steeplechase, he will be right in the mix for the Class A title. Other strong challenges will come from Jake Gogarty from Bay Shore; the second returner who ran 9:23 for 3200 meters last spring which is the top time from any runner in this race. Junior Douglas Antaky will look to lead a hungry Smithtown team to a Federation bid and see if they can challenge Northport. He missed states last year by less than a second and is only going to be a junior. He may challenge for the win with Sheahan and Gogarty. Brian Leibowitz from Ward Melville has also taken big strides and has had a big summer of training and should be near the top of the individual race as well.
17:00 is usually a good benchmark for an individual making the state meet. The five runners who broke it last year have all graduated but aside from the strange 2.5 Mile Spring Race, breaking 17 has placed you between 4th and 7th overall individually in Class A all the way back to the altered Hurricane Sandy course in 2013. If you're a runner who has plans on making the trip up to VVS, 17:00 would be a wise goal. No other returning runners broke 17:35 at the State Qualifier last year, so breaking 17:00 will require people to make a jump in fitness. A dark horse in Class A could be incoming sophomore Gavin DeVito from West Islip who had excellent track times as a Freshman last spring. Most of the times came in the 800/1600 but breaking 4:34 as a Freshman ranks him fifth out of Class A returning runners.
The team race could be a tight one but Northport has won the last three versions of this race. They won over ESM in 2019, won the 2.5 Mile race in April of 2021 over Ward Melville and they won the November 2021 race over Smithtown, Bay Shore, and Ward Melville (all separated by only 6 points for 2-4 place respectively). Northport returns 4 runners from their top 7 last year* (one of their top runners, Brandon Cruz, was sick at the State Qualifier and they ran an alternate but Cruz was back in their top 5 at States).
Based on returning runners, they will be hard to beat. Four Northport runners have run 18:03 or better at Sunken Meadow coming back will be tough for another team to overcome (Cruz ran 17:39 at Divisions). Bay Shore also has four runners at that level or better returning and are in shape to start the season. Ward Melville who won the 4x8 title over Northport in the spring and Smithtown will need help from underclassmen to step up and challenge Northport to stop them from winning four in a row. The COVID break has taken a toll on the depth of the entire state and Section XI is no different. As usual, things will start to take shape in early October for Section XI once the weather gets a bit cooler.
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For the first time since 2019, Wake Forest commit Gavin Ehlers won't be your Class B champion. The last time he didn't win the sectional title was when Tom Cirrito ran a 16:16 to beat him in 2019. He also led the West Hampton Beach team to titles in the last four championships. Because of the population of most of the schools in Section XI, more of the depth is in Class A but Class B has some great returning runners.
The individual favorite is Maximus Haynia from Westhampton Beach so the Individual title has a good chance to stay with the Hurricanes. He finished second last year to Ehlers and ran a great 9:12 3200 last spring (top Section XI returner from any class in the 3200 by over ten seconds). He will be very hard to beat but his closest competition should come from his teammate Trevor Hayes. Hayes was the fastest sophomore last year and is the only returner within one minute of Haynia from the State Qualifier. These two may be the top two runners in all of Section XI regardless of class this fall.
The next returners come from the 10th and 11th place finishers from last year's meet. James Ricci from Harborfields and Jess Joe Augustine from Mount Sinai come back with personal best times under 18 minutes at Sunken Meadow. Augustine had a great spring track season and broke 10 minutes for the steeplechase. Ricci is hard to predict going forward as he did not have any results after early February on Milesplit. Those four runners are the only returners under 18:27 from the State Qualifier. Depending on the team title, this might be the most wide open/exciting race for an individual spot at the state meet. As usual, summer training will play a huge part with who is on the bus to VVS
The team battle may prove to be interesting for Class B as well. Westhampton will be very hard to compete with up top but the team with the most depth by far is Miller Place. Miller place returns their entire top 7 and they return 5 out of their top 7 for the next two years. They're building a team that may soon challenge for a Class B title. Scoring five runners to West Hampton Beach's 3rd through 5th runners will be difficult but four Miller Place runners beat the third returner from WHB. It won't be easy for any team to get in front of Miller Place and Westhampton Beach based on 2021's returning runners/spring track times.
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Section XI only has four Class C teams (Cold Spring Harbor actually competes in Section VIII) which is actually one higher than last year. Southampton joins Class C which will make it more interesting because only two of the three teams had enough team members to record a score. Based on returning runners' results, Class C will go similarly to how it went last year but with Southampton sitting in between Center Moriches and Mattituck.
The individual race in the small races can be drastically changed by a runner who puts in a big summer, transfers schools, or had a good spring track season. Trevor Zappulla from Mattituck is your Class C champion from 2021 and had an excellent Spring Track season. He broke 4:40 for the 1600 and ran 10:16 for the 3200. He will be hard to beat but Spencer Buff from 2021 team champion Center Moriches was only 13 seconds behind him at the State Qualifier. Southampton's Evan Simioni also broke 19 minutes last year and is the third returner in his new class but spent most of the winter/spring doing shorter distance sprint events. Seeing how he does on the hilly 5k will be interesting. Unless Class C gets a boost in their depth, 19:30 will most likely earn an individual slot at the State Meet.
The team race will depend a lot on how the 9th graders from Mattituck improve and who made the biggest jumps from spring track until now. Center Moriches is the favorite to repeat but major changes can happen with the addition or subtraction of one runner. The meet changing from a dual meet scenario to a three team race will undoubtedly change the scoring but there is still a premium on top finishers in Class C. Expect a score much higher than in 2021, but a score close to 35-40 will most likely get the win in 2022.
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Southold Junior Flynn Klipstein is the returning champion for Class D. He just missed breaking the 18 minute mark at the County Championships last November. He had a huge race at states and finished 12th overall. Section XI runs its Class C and D races at the same time so the depth of the race is much stronger than it looks when the results are separated after the race is run. Last year's champions both are returning and only finished 7 seconds apart. Klipstein doesn't run winter or spring track so there is a chance that there could be an athlete or two that gets much closer to him. Port Jefferson's Brendan Capodanno had some nice track performances. He broke 4:40 for 1600 meters and 10:10 for the 3200 last spring. Colin Veit finished right behind Capodanno at the State Qualifier last year and was only a freshman, he may be poised to be right near the top this season. Breaking 19 minutes will almost assure you a trip to states in Class D as an individual.
The team race may have the biggest favorite out of any of the 8 Section XI championships that will be happening in November. Port Jefferson returned six out of their seven runners last year from a race where they put seven runners in the top ten. Their spread of returners is only 52 seconds and only four teams recorded a team score in 2021. Port Jefferson's spring track performances were also on a higher level than the other Class D teams. It will be difficult for another school to overtake Port Jefferson because Pierson and Southold only had one runner each in the top 10 that are returning.