By Christopher Hunt
New Rochelle coach Rosalind Gallino swore her team had run out of ammunition. North Rockland coach Gene Dall thought the same about his squad. Mount Vernon was poised the snatch the whole thing. But that’s why teams snatch and claw for points early.
That’s why people huddle around the scorer’s table and coaches nervously pace around, hugging clipboard and waiting until the last point is scored before daring to claim victory or concede defeat. Because sometimes the stars align just right, the way they did for New Rochelle Monday night as the Huguenots won the Class A championship with 68 points, in a meet that came down to the last two events.
North Rockland finished second with 62 and Mount Vernon, faced with three debilitating disqualifications, placed third with 57.5.
“I honestly thought we didn’t have enough,” Gallino said. “You can’t sell teams like Arlington (fourth, 53 points), North Rockland and Mount Vernon out.”
For most of the meet it seemed like a three-team race between Arlington, New Rochelle and North Rockland. First North Rockland seemed like they could run away with the title after Colton Lubaskza, Nick Bien-Aime and Kristian Aspinail went 1-2-3 in the triple jump, respectively, with 8 of 15 events scored.
But Mount Vernon scored 27 points in the shot put, led by Kaydon Davis’s 55-foot, 1-inch toss. Then Knights followed that with 28 points in the 300, sweeping the top four spots behind Michael Blake’s win in 35.21 seconds. That tied Mount Vernon with North Rockland at 55 and created some room on New Rochelle, which didn’t score in either of those events.
With the best sprint relays in Section 1, Mount Vernon was poised to grab its first section title under its new head coach. But mistakes ripped the plaque from the team’s grasp. Mount Vernon was disqualified in 4x200 relay for a cutting to Lane 1 of the track too early on the second leg. Then earned another DQ in the 4x400 for a uniform violation, dropping them to third.
Mount Vernon won both races before the disqualification was announced, losing 20 points on top of a false start in the 55 meters earlier in the meet. Still, Green knew a third-place finish and a shot at a win in his first year might be of some consolation.
“I’m disappointed but I can’t blame the kids,” assistant coach Adrian Rosario said. “We still have the state qualifier to look forward to and hopefully nationals.”
But New Rochelle didn’t just back into a championship. The team earned points where even they didn’t expect them. Harrison Quamily won the 3,200 handily over proven distance runners, James Naglieri and Nick Hughes, finishing in 9:43.5.
“Last year, I don’t think I scored here,” Quamily said. “Two years ago I wasn’t even a factor. It was just really exciting.”
Quamily led for nearly the entire second half of the race and admitted he looked back a few times simply because he couldn’t believe it.
“I kept thinking that someone was going to come sprinting by me but no one came,” he said. “I knew I wanted to make my move with 800 left so I could get away. Even after I finished I kept looking back.’
New Rochelle also got a boost from Jeremy Burke, won broke his school record while finishing fourth in the 600 from the second, and slower, section. Burke latched on to Mount Vernon’s Davon Moore then outsprinted him to finish in 1:22.7.
“We didn’t come expecting to win,” Burke said. “We expected to be on the board, close to those guys.”
And when the Huguenots needed points, they got them. Joe Shinn won the high jump in 6-2 with teammate Malcolm Moseley clearing 5-10 for fourth. Shinn also finished third in the 55 hurdles in 7.97.
“We’re not particularly good at one thing,” Gallino said. “But we try to be kind of good at everything. Let’s not forget that luck as a role too. We definitely got lucky in places.”
What Beacon’s Alex Shapiro accomplished had little to do with luck. Shapiro won the long jump in 21-2.75 but followed that by winning the 600 in a personal best 1:21.6. Clarkstown South’s Brendan Hallas set a blistering pace to start but with 75 meters left, Hallas ran out of gas. Yorktown’s Carter Humphrey attacked and Shapiro followed but Humphrey couldn’t hold him off.
“He likes to set the pace,” Shapiro said. “Hallas is a good runner. But he set a pace that I think was faster than most of us wanted to run. As soon as I started to make my move Humphrey started to go around and me and I had to go too. Then race was almost over. I realized I was running out of time.”
Arlington was lead by Jordan Yamoah and sophomore Eddie Mercenda. Yamoah won the pole vault clearing 14-6. Mercenda used an explosive finishing kick to edge Matt Soyk of White Plains after Cord Sgaglio of Fox Lane controlled the pace. Mercenda won in 4:24.4.
“White Plains and Fox Lane helped me the whole way,” he said. “I just went with the kid from White Plains. I was hoping to pass them but he passed (Sgaglio). I had an extra bagel this morning. I guess it gave me the extra energy.”
Yorktown’s Manu Kumar stepped down in distance to run the 1,000 and won in 2:32.4, outlasting Jamie Mitchell of Fox Lane, who finished second in 2:32.6. Kumar said he had already qualified for the state meet in the 1,600 and 3,200 and wanted to give himself more options for the state qualifier in two weeks. But he realized Monday he had more speed than he thought.
“I guess I’ll be running more 1,000’s,” he said.
Reach Christopher Hunt at chunt@armorytrack.com.