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Winter track teams racing into last month: Girls take ‘Best of Season’ in Section

CHRISTINE GALLAGHER PHOTO Coach Bryan Gallagher with the Shelter Island School spring track varsity girls team. From left, Justine Karen, Emma Gallagher, Lyng Coyne, Isabella Sherman, Francesca Frasco and Lindsey Gallagher.
CHRISTINE GALLAGHER PHOTO
Coach Bryan Gallagher with the Shelter Island School spring track varsity girls team. From left, Justine Karen, Emma Gallagher, Lyng Coyne, Isabella Sherman, Francesca Frasco and Lindsey Gallagher.

It’s finally starting to feel like spring as the action on the track continues to heat up.

On April 26, the Shelter Island School varsity girls spring track team traveled with the Greenport/Southold combined girls team to McGann-Mercy High School in Riverhead for a dual meet against Mercy.

The Lady Indians posted a few first place finishes in the events they ran. In the 100-meter dash, senior Francesca Frasco ran 14.6 seconds, a personal record (“PR”), sophomore Lyng Coyne ran 15.6 and senior Justine Karen ran 17.7. In the 200-meter dash, senior Lindsey Gallagher ran 27.9 seconds, sophomore Emma Gallagher ran 29.1, Frasco ran 32.3 and Karen ran 36.3.

Last week, the team of senior Isabella Sherman, Emma Gallagher, Frasco and Lindsey Gallagher broke the school record in the 4-by-100-meter relay. With a new mix of athletes, the team of Coyne, Emma Gallagher, Frasco and Lindsey Gallagher bested the recent school record by more than three seconds with a time of 55.6 seconds, coming in a close second to the Mercy Monarchs.

This mark earned the Lady Indians Best of Season honors for Section XI performances this season.

With the shocking and imminent closing of the Mercy school at the end of this school year, this meet was bittersweet in that it was the last home meet that Mercy would host. We participated in the senior send-off of three Monarchs and snapped a few photos for them.

On Saturday, April 28, both the boys and girls teams traveled to Westhampton Beach for the very competitive Westhampton Invitational. The event was capped at 25 teams, some of whom traveled from New York City to compete. The boys ran their event in the morning in the midst of a steamy fog followed by the girls who ran their event in the afternoon under warm and sunny skies.

For the boys team, junior Michael Payano ran the 400-meter dash and the 3,200-meter run in 58.74 seconds and 12:20.78 minutes, respectively. Sophomore Jonas Kinsey ran the 1,600-meter run in 5:06.50 minutes.

Sophomore Kal Lewis took first place overall in the 3,200-meter run with a time of 9:34.22, a PR and new school record. Sophomore Alberto Morales ran the 100-meter dash and the 200-meter dash in 13.39 and 26.88 seconds. Freshmen Jason Green and Daniel Schulteis ran the 400-meter dash in 74.16 and 71.64 seconds, respectively.

Freshman Theo Olinkiewicz ran the 1,600-meter run in 6:22.77 minutes. Freshman Tyler Gulluscio ran the 1,600-meter and 400-meter in 5:30 minutes and 64 seconds, respectively. Senior and winter track champion Joshua Green has been recovering from a concussion he received three weeks ago playing basketball; we’re all looking forward to his return, hopefully this week.

Next up was the girls who all ran the 800-meter run. Lindsey Gallagher ran 2:26.54 minutes, Frasco ran 2:56.66, Emma Gallagher ran 2:30.32 and Sherman ran 3:33.55.

With two months of the season behind us and less than a month to go, there’s three more races on the calendar before championships. This week, both teams will run at Babylon on Thursday, May 3.

In closing, I’ll leave you with a thank you our Shelter Island teams received from Greenport/Southold Coaches Mike Gunther and Nick Fioretti: “We would like to express our gratitude and appreciation for the girls and boys varsity track teams and their coaches, Toby Green and Bryan Gallagher. [On] April 14, we hosted a “home” meet at the Mattituck track. When we arrived there, we had to set up for hurdles, the high jump area and other events. Due to two senior trips and other school sanctioned events, our boys and girls teams were severely down in numbers, which makes hosting a track meet a challenge. However, the meet went smoothly, largely due to the help of Coaches Green and Gallagher and their athletes. When they realized that most of our athletes would be competing in three or four events and our ability to host was going to be difficult, the entire Shelter Island group helped with set up and breakdown, as well as scoring and recording events. Even though they had their events to compete in, they were ready to step in at any time from the time we arrived to the time we packed it in. Having shared a bus with Shelter Island the past two winter seasons, I have experienced many positive moments with the athletes and their coaches. They represent Shelter Island well; not just in their athletic abilities but in the positive attitudes, friendliness and overall manner in which they conduct themselves.”