Large School Meet
The first of the major questions is: how will the best sprinters in the county handle doing 300 trials and finals for possibly the first time this season? Unless an athlete went to Ocean Breeze or the Armory and found themselves in the finals of a 300, they have not had a same day double like this since last spring in the 200. The 300, if you do not run anything else prior to it or after it, is a difficult double in of itself. Considering there is only 35-40 minutes rest between the prelims and finals, it can favor a runner who can cruise through the trials portion over someone who needs to use all their energy to make the top six. Additionally, many of the top teams will be relying on these athletes to come back and run a quality relay leg less than an hour after. Connetquot and North Babylon each have at least one runner that may run up to five races on February 4th.
The second question is: What will Zariel Macchia, William Floyd's generational talent, do to get herself ready for the post season meets? As mentioned earlier, Northport got the win last year on the backs of their distance runners. They went 1-2 in the 3000, 1st in the 1000, and 1-2-3 in the 1500 because Macchia chose to run the 600 and a relay last year. If she chooses to run her best events, Northport will score less points. This year, it is more of the same. Macchia had one of the busiest weekends that we can remember last weekend when she ran an INCREDIBLE 20:05 to capture the bronze medal at the USA Junior XC championships. To put that into perspective, she ran two 10:02 3000m races back-to-back, on grass, without stopping. In what may have been the most impressive race of her already legendary career, she qualified to race in Australia in a few weeks at the World Cross Country Championships. The day after that, she traveled back to New York and ran three races for her team at the League Championship Meet. She most likely was a little tired. Looking ahead, she will be more than rested by February 4th and the team battle will rely heavily on what events she enters. Will she rest a bit for a big effort in Australia? Or continue her High School season? We won't know until February 3rd, but whatever race she is in will definitely be exciting to watch.
The third question is: Where does West Babylon place all of their runners? And can Central Islip and Walt Whitman's studs displace Connetquot and North Babylon's top sprinters? As far as well-rounded teams, West Babylon seems to cover the most areas. They have an excellent sprinter/jumper in Jade Dockery, great distance/middle distance runners in Shannon Hieber, Alejandra Garcia, and Kristen Aguilera, and extremely strong race walkers led by Farrah Wengler.
Connetquot is led by senior superstar Alexa Colondona who will look to take down North Babylon's Samara Lawrence in the two sprint events. If she can do that, Connetquot has a real chance to win the entire meet. Connetquot is led by Colondona and their outstanding hurdler, Kaylin Mallon.
Commack led by Julie Thomas, the overwhelming favorite in the shot put, and Bay Shore led by Maggie McCormick and HJ 1 seed Lauryn Piccirelli will also look to win the title if any team leaves an opening.