Small School Meet
The small school meet probably has the biggest favorite out of the four county meets. Half Hollow Hills West is looking to win its first title since 2018. Mount Sinai has been the top team for the last 4 years (3 meets) and based on form charts, should be in the top three this year. They will have to have a great meet in order to take down Hills West though.
Hills is led by strong sprinters and the top seed in both horizontal jumps, Mitchell Diamond. Diamond is the first seed in the triple jump by almost four feet and has a seven inch lead in the long jump. If he can secure 20 points in those two events, Hills West will be difficult to beat.
Mount Sinai should be able to score in the mid to high 40's if they have a good day. Shoreham-Wading River and Eastport-South Manor both score points in many areas and both have strong distance teams, but depending on the availability of NYS XC champion Maximus Haynia, it could knock them down some points. Max was dealing with some sickness at the beginning of the season and did not rush back to racing after an absolutely unreal ending to his Cross Country season where he became the first Suffolk boy runner to win the Nike New York Regional title in Wappinger Falls. He probably won't be in the fastest heat of the 1600, but that may not matter if he decides to do the double and score 20 points for his team. He is the fastest returning 3200 runner in the county and he has already run 9:30 this season. His 4:47 season's best in the 1600 is on borrowed time if he decides to run it at Counties.
The events that could really swing the meet seem to be the 300 and the 600. One team that can surprise some people depending on how they can split up their relays is Amityville. They should finish top five and although they may not be able to score enough points to win, they have very high seeds in the events under 1000m. They have room to improve if they have a good day.
The last two individual events that can and will impact the team scores of the meet are the 55 High Hurdles and the High Jump. In the hurdles, after the first seed, Mount Sinai's Zekey Huang, there are five runners that are within .17 of each other. Clipping one hurdle can swing a lot of points. The High Jump has three people all with 5-8 seasonal bests and one personal record on the day can take you from scoring 1-2 points to scoring 6-8.
The meet may very well be decided prior to the relays but in the small school meet, depth is usually a problem and it can cause most teams to have to pick between loading up one relay or another.
All four meets should be great meets and every year, the level of performances rises for a lot of athletes who are timing their peak for this point in the season.