3rd Place Finish For Huntington Boys Track Team

HUNTINGTON, NY — The Huntington boys track and field team earned multiple gold medals and captured third place at the Section XI Class A Championships last week at Connetquot, the school district announced.

Ethan Lawless, a "freshman sensation," competed in the throwing circle, the district wrote. Last year, Huntington didn’t have any competitors in the discus finals, but this year was a different story.

After the preliminary round of throws, Huntington found itself in a perfect position to garner a number of points. Lawless threw a personal best of 134’9; junior John Genova threw a personal best of 125’2 and junior Carmine Carusone threw a personal best of 117-feet.

"So going into the finals, Huntington was in the second, sixth and seventh positions, respectively," head coach Ronald E. Wilson said in a news release.

Genova's throw of 125’2 moved up to fifth place. Lawless earned another silver medal in the shot put with a toss of 45 feet, which was still short of his personal best of 46’7.

"Had he beat his personal best record, he would have been a county champion as a freshman and we haven’t had a county champion as a freshman since 2000 with Jovan Hairston, who made the state team all four years while in high school," Wilson said.

West Babylon senior Eamon Murray won the discus with a toss of 46’5. Lawless has three years of eligibility left to compete.

In the pole vault, junior David Dje Bi showed improvement.

"He leaped an amazing 11 feet to capture seventh place," Wilson said. "He tied the fifth place finisher, but had more failed attempts so he ended up in seventh."

In other action, senior Nikolai Seferian was made the finals in the 110m high hurdles.

"Unfortunately, due to a mistake by the hurdle crew, the young men who made the finals had to run a third time," Wilson said. "Someone placed hurdle 10 in the wrong location and it totally threw their steps and momentum out the window, so they had to rerun the event."

After a third time, Seferian earned a silver medal in 15.26 seconds, just shy of his personal best of 15.20.

North Babylon’s Jordan Peck won the event in a time of 15.04. Seferian would later go on and defeat Peck in the 400m intermediate hurdles the gold in 57.74. Senior Ryan Centeno added to the team’s total points with a fifth place finish in 1:00.99.

Senior Matteo Armstrong had the most challenging day of all, according to the district. He had to run three grueling events, which were only separated by an hour of rest for each one.

Armstrong placed second in both the 800m and 1600m runs.

"He didn’t have personal bests in either, but he knew he had to compete and at the same time conserve energy to run all three events," Wilson said.

Armstrong’s third and final event was the 4x400m relay.

"He didn’t leave anything left in the tank at this point," Wilson said. "The Bellport runner passed him and coming off the final turn, but Armstrong gathered some energy and closed well in the final stretch and passed the Bellport runner. He handed off to junior Johan Fajardo who had a short lead. Fajardo was challenged by Bellport’s anchor in the final 100m of the race, but managed to find a gear to hold off Bellport for the 4x400m Class A championship."

The lead leg on the relay was Seferian with the second leg being junior Jahmar Francis.

Francis and Fajardo placed fifth and sixth, respectively in the open 400m dash to add to Huntington’s total team points. Fajardo would also leap 5’8 in the high jump for sixth place.

Huntington’s 4x100m relay, consisting of lead leg Dje Bi, second leg senior Kender Edouazin, third leg senior Tyler Miles and anchor leg junior Christian Delgado, placed a close second to No. 1 Suffolk-ranked North Babylon.

"Delgado closed ground well on the anchor leg of North Babylon, but ran out of ground," Wilson said. North Babylon finished in 44.09 before Huntington crossed the line in 44.91.

Junior Nikolai Lulewich competed in the pentathlon and earned a silver medal, placing a close second with 2,801 points. Fernando Padilla of Connetquot won the event with 2,842 points.

Freshman Titan Elysee was well on his way to earning a medal in pentathlon, but was sidelined on the first day of the competition earlier in the month because of an injury he sustained in the long jump.

Huntington’s 4x800m relay of senior Ian Rotonno, freshman Max Carino, junior Yiovanni Rivera and junior Ethan Goleski placed eighth in a time of 9:01.

The Blue Devils will look to improve at the state championship qualifying meet on Thursday and Friday at Comsewogue.