The beauty of High School sports is that there is always a new face ready to debut. Seniors graduate, and new athletes come in to take their place. Each week, we take a look at one of the names that are here to stay over the next few years, as they take on the veterans of our Sport.
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Watch out New York. The fastest freshman at the 2024 New York State Meet just shaved 30-seconds off his mark from that course last year.
Meet sophomore Leo Shostal (Warwick Valley), who finished 6th in his race, and 8th overall in the merge at the Queensbury Pre-State Invitational this past weekend. Last Fall, he took 43rd place in the Class A Championships, running 16:10.4 for the very flat 5K race. Now, at the start of the season, he just ran 15:40.7, better than all but one Junior.
He had started his season with a win at his home Invitational, a course that once held the State Meet. That performance garnered a 177 Speed Rating, and then Shostal repeated that same Speed Rating a week later at Queensbury.
He's no stranger to running fast. On the track as a freshman, he was the fastest in his grade for the 1600m, running a 4:25.44 at the OCIAA Championships. In the double distance, he was the second fastest in New York for Frosh, when he ran 9:30.00 the day before at that same Championship.
His best event on the track would have to be the 2K Steeple, where he broke Aidan Tooker's (Saratoga) Freshman State Record at the Ahearn Classic, held on Warwick's home track. Tooker had run 4:21.9 at the Schuylerville Classic in 2013, Shostal went 6:19.72.
This athlete is one to watch.
