Track community

Sullivan County kids use SCCC facility to ready themselves

for meets that count

By RICHARD A. ROSS

LOCH SHELDRAKE, NY — It’s large, it’s brightly lit and it’s all a buzz twice a week with the hubbub of runners, jumpers and throwers from Sullivan County schools.

If you’re an indoor track athlete from Eldred, Livingston Manor, Tri-Valley, Sullivan West, Liberty or Monticello, the place to be is the refurbished Paul Gerry Field House at Sullivan County Community College. With its new hardwood floor already painted with lane lines, the field house, illuminated by bright new lights that highlight the fresh green walls, commemorates the home of National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) Sullivan County Generals. Twice a week, the venue serves as a community practice milieu for the legions of high school indoor track athletes who are working on improving their running starts, splits and overall times.

While the college has its limitations in its lack of a jumping pit, pole-vaulting area or a caged throwing venue for heaving actual shot puts and weights, it does offer a high-jump area, lanes for running and a matted area for throwing a safer-weighted shot put.

While the overall space of the field house wasn’t altered, it no longer suffers from a dingy atmosphere and a rock-hard cement floor to induce shin splints.

The afternoon meets serve as community practice, and staging these practice meets is far more beneficial than running through the halls and up and down flights of stairs at school. Now that the ground is covered with snow and ice, outside workouts are out of the question.

Coaches keep track of times and distances on their clipboards but there are no official results.

On December 19, the county teams, minus Monticello, arrived for their second visit to the newly renovated facility. As snow was in the forecast, Monticello cancelled its after-school activities. Other schools nixed their night basketball games, but allowed the track athletes to get in their workout.

For area coaches, it was a great chance to give personal attention, offer pointers and monitor the progress of their large teams. They hope that the structured practice events will have a positive effect when it comes to competing in the weekend meets at West Point.

Sullivan County kids fare well

at OCIAA relays

Several locals have already evinced their prominence, not only at the college practice facility, but also in the context of the OCIAA meets.

At the OCIAA relays held at West Point on December 15, Sullivan County athletes fared well as they mixed it up with schools large and small. While most of the developmental meets are scored by division, the OCIAA relays are not.

Following is a list of the events and the top Sullivan County kids with their times, distances and places. The first number is the athlete’s or team’s place. The time or distance follows the names. School abbreviations are as follows: Eldred (E), Liberty (L), Livingston Manor (LM), Monticello (M), Sullivan West (SW) and Tri-Valley (T-V).

1500m race walk: 9) Olivia Seidl (SW) 9:20.76; 10) Kaley Donnelly (E) 9:22.81.

Boys 4x200 relay: 13) Jamie Alejandro, Shane Jackson, Dominic Martinez and Kevin O`Rourke (M) 1:48.07; 14) Matt Campanella, Ian Halloran, Joey Counts and Kwami Agyapon (E) 1:48.55; 15) Will Schlott, TJ Telesky, Rich Feeney and Chris Murphy (SW) 1:50.47.

Girls 4x200 relay: 8) Sara Alsdorf, Elizabeth Peters, Kendra Barker and Morgan Hawkins (SW) 2:03.82; 11) Anna Loor, Rebecca Concors, Marisela Acevedo and Emily Martin (M) 2:05.17; 12) Christina Watts, Rachel Doran, Samantha Warden and Lauren Alves (E) 2:09.33; 13) Casey Offringa, Agnes Pompeii, Tehnyat Kahn and Kaitlin Connor (TV) 2:10.04.

Boys 1600 sprint medley: 4) Colin Seidl, Will Schlott, TJ Telesky and Austin Erlwein (SW) 4:03.3; 8) Nick Denman, Nate Coehlo, Jake Gray and Tom Riordan (T-V) 4:09.47; 10) Trevor Tate, Ryan Harnish, Saeed Robinson and Robert Davidson (L) 4:13.05.

Girls 1600 sprint medley: 5) Rachel Sanborn, Agnes Pompeii, Casey Offringa and Courtney Roosa (T-V) 4:50.19; 6) Kim McKay, Taylir Lorino, Sabrina Mastrogiovanni and Guadalupe Perez (L) 4:50.59; 10) Kasi Pilney, Sara Alsdorf, Elizabeth Peters and Morgan Hawkins (SW) 4:56.51.

Boys distance medley relay: 4) David Wilber, Robert Venditti, James Dzurica and Brendan Devine (M) 11:22.07; 13) Trevor Tate, Tim Burgio, Scott Kaplan and Ryan Harnish (L) 12:49.75; 14) Nick Denman, Jeremy Kinney, Tom Riordan and Mike Freeman (T-V) 12:50.71.

Girls distance medley relay: 3) Jessica Fingers, Rebecca Concors, Marisela Acevedo and Emma Cohen (M) 13:04.37; 7) Courtney Roosa, Rachel Sanborn, Caroline Bertholf and Shannon Hornbeck (T-V) 13:47.03; 9) Rianne Erlwein, Kendra Barker, Stephany Robison and Chelsie Schadt (SW) 14:03.59.

Girls 3x55 shuttle hurdles: 12) Kirsten Sauer, Sabrina Mastrogiovanni and Jasmine Walizadeh (L) 33.54; 15) Casey Offringa, Kristin Offringa and Joy Leon

(T-V) 34.15.

Boys shot put: 1) Garrett Grey (T-V)

45-07.25; 3) Tanzeel Kahn (T-V) 44-00.25; 9) Mark Tesseyman (SW) 39-03.25.

Girls shot put: 8) Brittany Reddish (SW) 28-00.50; 13) Laura Elberth (T-V) 26-07.50. 16); Kim McKay (L) 25-11.00.

Boys long jump: 5) Tim Burgio (L) 18-04.50; 8) Nate Coehlo (T-V) 17-05.00; 16) Robert Davidson (L) 16-02.00.

Girls long jump: 8) Sabrina Mastrogiovanni (L) 13-02.00; 10) Taylir Lorino (L) 12-10.50; 21) Joy Leon (T-V) 11-05.00.

Boys triple jump: 5) Malcolm Strother (L) 35-11.00; 23) Jake Gray (T-V) 29-04.00; 24) Jesse Boncek (T-V) 28-05.00.

Girls triple jump: 9) Jasmine Walizadeh (L) 27-03.50; 14) Elizabeth Peters, (SW) 26-00.50; 15) Elana Ehrenberg (L) 25-03.00.

Boys high jump: 3) Malcolm Strother (L) 5-08.00; 3) Mathew Arielly (L) 5-08.00; 6) Austin Erlwein (SW) 5-03.00.

Girls high jump: 3) Agnes Pompeii (T-V) 4-06.00.

Boys pole vault: 8) Gregory Castro (L) 9-06.00; 10) Brent Kaplan (L) 8-06.00; 12) Kevin O`Rourke (M) 8-00.00.

Girls pole vault: 2) Morgan Hawkins (SW) 7-06.00.

Boys weight throw: 1) Garrett Grey (T-V) 58-00.00; Tanzeel Kahn (T-V) 45-05.25.

Girls weight throw: 2) Paulina Renggli (E) 30-03.25; 4) Shannon Hanson (E) 26-00.25.

Visit riverreportersports.com for an album of photos.