East Edges North for League I Track Title

For the first time since the school district split in 2004, both Sachem East and North placed one and two, respectively, at the girls winter track League I championships.

Sachem East won the tournament with a score of 127 and North was not far behind with 110 points. It marks the third time East as won a league title during the winter season (2008, 2009). Sachem won nine league titles as one school between 1986-2002. North returned to League I during the 2007-08 season.  This year's league tournament was North's second since the 2004 opening of East.

“Our girls seized the moment and were able to accomplish their goal of a league championship,” said Sachem East coach Joe Coffey. “They worked hard over the last couple of months to reach this point in the season. We started talking from day one about the league meet and if they put in 120 percent effort at all times, and had fun and enjoyed themselves, they would reach their final goal and be victorious.”

Sachem East and North had impressive outings with place winners in almost every event. East won the 4x800 in 10:02.68 with Katie Hempfling, Casey Gelderman, Shannon O’Hehir and Nicole Silvestre running hard.

They won the 4x400 in 4:17.73 with Jacqueline Wasilko, Laurie Semetsis, Allyson Figalora and Amanda DiSalvo.

Rachel Paul won the 600-meter run in 1:39.29 and 3,000-meter run in 10:21.91.

In the 1,000-meter run, Semetsis and Silvestre finished first and second, respectively.

East also had a pair at the top of the shot put rankings in Brittany Sepe (34-04.50) and Gabrielle Trejo (32-02.50).

Overall, between both schools the racewalk event was all Sachem as the Arrows had the first five finishers: Kelly Maranchuk (East), Katie Michta (North), Alyssa Furlani (East), Amanda Catherall (Eat), and Natalie DeQuarto (North).

With challenging workouts and a tough indoor meet schedule setting the tone for North’s post-season meets, team captains Becca Duffy, Andrea Hegarty, Rachel LaSala, Aprilrose Marasco, Lilly Meyer and Michta held a big movie night at North following Friday’s workout.  The team watched Miracle, an inspiring movie about the 1980 U.S. Hockey team.  A good night’s sleep later at 7:15 a.m. as the team reported to Sachem North, athletes listened to coach Alex Young discuss the movie themes of opportunity and success in pre-meet comments. 

Sachem knew that there would be exciting race opportunities during the meet.  The team’s own definition of success – knowing that you are ready to your best in a meet because of commitment to success all season (a variation of Juma Ikangaa’s “The will to win means nothing without the will to prepare.”) – prepared North athletes for the challenges that lay ahead in today’s meet. 

Sachem’s depth in jumping events meant that the North Arrows would make their strongest point scoring drive in the second half of the meet.  North jumpers exceeded expectations but North could not close a gap against a distance-deep East squad.

North scored in 12 of the meet’s 15 events and placed first in five events.  Kelly Lavan, Sunja Joseph and Melissa Michels scored in three events apiece.  Nikki Fogarty, Alyssa Leto and Duffy scored in two events each.

Joseph win the triple jump and long jump. Lavan won the 1,500 meter run (5:04.23), Michta won the high jump (5-02) and North won the 4x200 comprised of Leto, Joseph, Fogarty and Michels in 1:51.23.