Spring track finishes in high style

This past week brought an end to the regular season for our Shelter Island School varsity boys and girls spring track teams. The program, brought back to the school after more than a decade’s hiatus, has been a fun and successful season.

On May 8, teams traveled with the Greenport/Southold combined teams to the Stony Brook School for a dual meet against Stony Brook. While we raced, Stony Brook battled Mercy on the baseball diamond. Stony Brook’s track is directly behind the backstop of their baseball field, so we had to be alert for foul balls near the track’s starting line.

This was the first time at a track meet that I thought we should have brought helmets. No less than 10 foul balls came our way, with one narrowly missing yours truly by inches.

For the boys, sophomore Jonas Kinsey paced senior Jack Lang in the 1,600-meter run to a 5:20.6 minute first and second place finish. In the 400-meter dash, freshmen Tyler Gulluscio set a new personal record (PR) of 60.9 seconds while Daniel Schulteis ran 69.3 (PR), Jason Green ran 71.9 and Theo Olinkiewicz ran 72.6 (PR). In the 200-meter dash, sophomore Alberto Morales ran 12.8 seconds (PR) and Lang ran 13.8. In the 800-meter run, sophomore Kal Lewis ran 2:01.0 minutes, senior Joshua Green ran 2:10.0 and junior Michael Payano ran a PR of 2:21.1.

In the 200-meter dash, Morales ran 26.3 seconds and Schulteis ran 32.0. In the 3,200-meter run, Gulluscio paced Olinkiewicz to a PR of 14:06.0 in Theo’s first time running of the event. Jason Green and Schulteis have expanded the team’s range by working into the throwing field events. Green threw the discus to a PR of 75 feet, 1 inch and Schulteis threw the shot put to a PR of 23 feet, 4 inches.

Closing out the day in style, the team of Payano, Kinsey, Lewis and Joshua Green set a new school record in the 4 by 400-meter relay with a time of 3:40.2 minutes, breaking the 1994 record of 3:47.7 set by Matt Kast, James Richmond, Blaz Gorse and Mike Hallman.

For the girls, we had a skeleton crew since three of five Lady Indians were ill and didn’t compete. Francesca Frasco crushed her previous PR in the 800-meter run by nine seconds with a performance of 2:41.4 minutes, while senior Isabella Sherman ran 3:20.0.

On May 12, we had our first and only “local” race of the season, travelling a mere 20 minutes to East Hampton for the East End Classic invitational. Lewis set an East Hampton track and meet record by posting a first place finish in the 1,600-meter run in 4:18.31 minutes. Kinsey and Gulluscio posted first and third place finishes in the freshman/sophomore race with times of 4:59.66 and 5:10.41, both PR’s.

In the 100-meter dash, Payano and Morales ran 12.77 (PR) and 13.17 seconds, respectively. In the 800-meter run, Joshua Green ran 2:00.29 minutes (PR) and Payano ran 2:17.87 both besting their personal records for the second time this week. In the 800-meter run, Joshua Green and Payano ran 2:00.29 and 2:17.87 minutes, besting their PR’s for the second time this week. Green took first place, Payano third.

In the field events, Jason Green threw the discus 77 feet, 11 inches (PR) to a third place finish. The team of Olinkiewicz, Jason Green, Gulluscio and Morales ran the 4 by 100-meter relay in 58.21 seconds. Finishing the day, the team of Payano, Kinsey, Lewis and Joshua Green ran the 4 by 400-meter relay in 3:42.50 minutes to a first place finish.

For the girls, the team of Sherman, sophomore Emma Gallagher, Frasco and senior Lindsey Gallagher ran the 4 by 400-meter relay in 4:41.01 minutes to a third place finish. In the 800-meter run, Lindsey Gallagher ran 2:31.67 minutes to a first place finish, Frasco ran 2:43.73 to a fifth place finish, and Sherman set a new PR with 3:12.48. Emma Gallagher ran 2:38.88 minutes to a first place finish in the freshman/ sophomore race.

Next up during the spring track season are the Division Championships followed by State Qualifiers. Since Shelter Island is running as independent athletes, we are unable to run in the Division Championships since we are not considered a team by Section XI, even though many of our athletes have run times that would easily qualify them to run in Division 3 for small schools.

So the next three weeks, we will continue our training, waiting for State Qualifiers to happen on June 1 and 2.

Only the top 24 athletes in the county per event qualify to run at State Qualifiers. It’s likely we will have a few athletes meet that standard.