Shelter Island winter track teams gearing up for championship season

As winter track starts to approach the championship season, each meet takes on more importance as the athletes do their best to qualify for their targeted goal races. 

On Saturday, Jan. 11, the boys team was split up in two places. Senior Kal Lewis qualified for the very competitive Molloy Stanner Games, which were held at the world-famous Armory track in Manhattan. Lewis ran the boys Invitational Mile, which accepted only 13 athletes. 

Lewis got off to a strong start leading for the first two laps and then the lead changed several times during the race. With only one lap to go, Lewis was still in the lead pack. As the competition surged and picked up the pace, Lewis did his best, finishing in fifth place with a time of 4:24.99 minutes. Three seconds separated the first place finisher from fifth. 

Meanwhile, sophomore Pacey Cronin raced at the Section XI Freshman/ Sophomore Championships at Brentwood’s Suffolk County Community College. Running in the 1,000-meter run, Cronin ran a respectable 3:23.46 minutes, less than a quarter second off from his personal record. 

On Sunday, Jan. 12, the girls team traveled to Brentwood to compete in the Jim Howard Memorial meet. In the small schools division, freshman Andrea Napoles started the day off running a solid 1,500-meter run in 7:02.21 minutes. 

In the 55-meter dash, senior Lauren Gurney ran 8.55 seconds, sophomore Isabella Fonseca 8.88, Emma Martinez-Madjisova 8.95, sophomore Lily Page 9.62 and sophomore Daria Kolmogorova 9.88. Next up, sophomore Ariana Carter ran the 1,000-meter run in 3:54.90 minutes, a good performance indeed, and a personal record (PR).

Over at the field events, Martinez-Madjisova competed in the long jump, landing her best jump of the day at 13 feet, 0 inches (PR). 

The last event for the lady Indians was the 300-meter dash. Fonseca, competing in the event for the first time, ran 54.55 seconds (PR). Napoles ran 59.58 (PR) and Page rounded the day out with 60.90 seconds. 

This coming weekend at Brentwood, the boys and girls are scheduled to run in Section XI League Championships, the girls at 9 a.m. on Saturday, Jan. 18, and the boys at 9 a.m. on Sunday, Jan. 19.