Half Hollow Hills East and West teams were there. And so were a smattering of Nassau County and New Jersey teams. Still, New York City teams dominated the field as Brooklyn’s Boys and Girls High School hosted the 20th Kings Relay Carnival on Randall’s Island’s Icahn Stadium.
The trip to Icahn was a first-ever for a Sachem North girls track team. North felt positive vibes from the moment team members saw the world class track’s Carolina blue coloring until Sachem ran its fastest 4×400 since the 2011 season in the meet’s last event.
Sachem took control of the meet’s first even – the 4xMile relay – when leadoff leg Elise Ramirez surged to the lead on lap two of the race. Oriana Howell, Monica Abrams and Kelly Lavan extended Sachem’s lead in their legs of the race and Sachem won the race in 23:04.03. Sachem freshman Mackenzie Coleman also used lap two her her race in the 2000 m. steeplechase to take a lead she never relinquished on her way to victory in a career-best time of 7:48.90.
Coleman anchored the first place Frosh-Soph 4×800 m. relay less than an hour later. Teammates Emily Lin, Nicole Costanzo and Amanda Flynn ran strong legs following the team relay goal to “keep the baton in the race” as Mackenzie took the baton only a few meters behind the-then race leader before taking the race lead for good less than 200 meters into her anchor leg.
Sachem was near the top of leader board’s in the three field events in which it entered today. Gabriella (third) and Carly Swinford (fourth) medaled in high jump. Melissa Michels took second in long jump and Sunja Joseph placed third in triple jump. Sachem also showed is depth in sprint, middle distance and relay events with top five performances in all varsity relay races.
Sachem placed third in the 4×100 m. relay, fifth in the 4×400 meter relay and second in the 4×800 meter relay.
The Arrows resume their League II dual meet action at Ward Melville on Tuesday.
FOOTNOTES
- Melissa Michels medaled in each of her three events today – 4×100, 4×400 and long jump. Emily Rathmann and Alyssa Leto also ran on the 4×100 and 4×400 relays.
- Nikki Fogarty rounded out the varsity 4×100 before anchoring the Frosh-Soph 4×400 in one of the fastest one lap splits of the day for Sachem.
- Team rookies Ashley Pimentel and Sarah Jarrar ran their first quarter miles for Sachem today with outstanding results – congratulations!
- Corri Moran ran the middle distance double as she raced her first 800 meters of her career as she anchored the SMR and returned for 400 meter duties in the DMR later in the meet.
- Alternates Marysa Mullen (steeplechase) and Kelly Ingarra (4×200) were pressed into service with great results. Marysa placed fifth in steeple and Kelly ran a strong anchor in the 4×200 a short time after her outstanding leadoff leg in the 4×100.
- Taylor Buechner and Jenn Weiss had to wait more than six hours before competing in the 3rd place DMR. Both had career-bests at their respective distances.