Cuesta’s Girls Prove to Be Quick Studies at Zeitler Relays

Yani Cuesta, who coaches East Hampton High’s girls winter track team, said during a conversation Monday that her girls — she has a dozen — proved to be quick studies when it came to the Zeitler Relays at Suffolk Community College-Brentwood last Thursday.

“Because we have a small team, we hadn’t even practiced relay races,” she said. “The day before, we finalized the teams and had them practice handoffs, for the first time.”

All things considered, she was quite pleased, Cuesta said, with the results, chiefly with JiJi Kramer and Mimi Fowkes’s win in the 1,500-meter racewalk relay.

“We knew Westhampton had a very fast racewalker, Natalie Ehlers, whose best time was 7:18.59, but their other girl wasn’t as good,” said Cuesta. “Our girls worked together to beat them out. . . . JiJi’s time was 8:19.44, a personal record, and Mimi’s was 8:20.82 for a combined time of 16:40.26. Westhampton was second at 18:19.45.”

Kramer and Nina Piacentine had teamed up in the event a few years ago, finishing second, Cuesta said. It was the first time an East Hampton team had won it.

Moreover, the hastily put together sprint medley relay team of Penelope Greene, Lillie Minskoff, Marisol Chamale, and Ava Engstrom finished second among League IV’s 11 schools in that event. 

Cuesta quoted Greene — a distance runner, as is Engstrom — as having said afterward that she “never thought I would get a medal that said ‘sprint’ on it.”

Greene led it off, running the 400, with Minskoff (200), Chamale (200), and Engstrom (800) following, recording a time of 4:46.33.

“Our distance runners were happy to run shorter distances than the 1,500 and 3,000, though we didn’t have any sprinters who wanted to go longer, to run in a 4-by-800 relay, say,” said the coach. “That sprint medley relay was an excellent example of teamwork, of helping each other out.”

Juliana Barahona, who has been competing in the shot-put and in the 300 this season, jumped in, Cuesta said, when it came time to run the 4-by-200 relay, with Leah Hatch, Julia Caldwell, and Grace Brosnan, a hurdler and jumper who, like Barahona, also stepped up.

Field events were treated as relays too. The shot-put team of Barahona and Bella Espinoza, a pole-vaulter and 300 runner who was making her debut in the event, placed seventh with a combined throw of 46-11. Barahona’s 27-2 was a personal record.

Brosnan’s 4-6 in the high jump — she had no partner — earned her sixth place in that event. Minskoff (12-4) and Chamale (13-51/2) placed sixth in the long jump relay, and the 4-by-400 relay team of Espinoza, Anna Carman, Greene, and Engstrom placed seventh.

While Cuesta has a small team of 12 competitors, it is larger than the four she had last year. Caldwell, a ninth grader, Barahona, a sophomore, Brosnan, a ninth grader, Carman, a sophomore, Chamale, a junior, Greene, a sophomore, and Hatch, a junior, were all new to winter track, the coach said.

Minskoff, the team’s captain, who’s a junior, had been “a joy. I tell her what I need and she does it. She’s been a great help, a real leader.”

Cuesta had been thinking of taking Espinoza, who she thinks may best Danielle Futerman’s outdoor pole-vault record of 10-0, to last weekend’s Stanner Games at the 168th Street Armory in New York City, but did not. 

“Only boys [Ryan Fowkes and Matt Maya] went,” she said.

Ben Turnbull, who coaches East Hampton’s boys winter track team, reported by email that Fowkes had placed fifth in the invitational mile with a personal-best 4:32.85. Kal Lewis of Shelter Island won that race in 4:23.27.

Maya, Turnbull said, placed 10th in the 300, in 37.85, a personal record for him and, said Turnbull, “very close to our school record, which is 37.34.”

The boys team is to compete in the league meet Saturday at Suffolk Community, and is to vie in the Ocean Breeze High School’s invitational meet on Staten Island the following weekend.

The girls league meet, also at Suffolk Community College-Brentwood, is to be held Sunday, “though snow is forecast.” 

“Our meet is to be the last of the day, from 7 to 9:30 p.m.,” Cuesta said, with a sigh. 

Today, the girls are to compete in the Jim Howard invitational, also at Suffolk Community, from 5 to 9 p.m.