Some Good Track News
Both of East Hampton High’s winter track teams finished at the bottom of the heap in league meets at Suffolk Community College-Brentwood this past weekend, but both are very young, and, particularly in the girls’ case, have thin rosters.
Nevertheless, there was some good news: Chjuvaughn Cameron placed third among the freshmen in the countywide freshman-sophomore meet’s 55-meter dash Friday in a personal best time of 7.15 seconds, and, in the same category, Erik Engstrom placed fourth in the 1,600 in a personal best 5:00.54.
“Chjuvaughn and Erik took home medals for their efforts,” said the boys coach, Chris Reich, “as did our freshman 4-by-200 relay team of Cameron, Daniel Soto, Connor Gonzalez, and Jackson Rafferty for finishing fifth. It was the best meet of the season for us.”
Jack Bistrian, Paul King, Liam McGovern, Erik Perez (who “p.r.’d” in the 1,000), and Erik Sanchez “also did well,” Reich said.
The team scored only 1 point in the league meet Sunday night, the result of Engstrom’s sixth-place finish in the 3,200.
“With only one senior and with 10 of our 17 athletes being freshmen or sophomores, it’s hard to compete at the league championship level, especially having no field event athletes [high jump, long jump, triple jump, hurdles, and shot-put],” the coach continued.
“If Adam Cebulski had stayed healthy this winter, he should have been able to break 4:40 in the mile and thus earn fourth place in the league. Because of his weak IT band, he was only able to run a 4:58, but at least he’ll be healthy and ready to go come the spring track season.”
The girls team, which has a roster of 12, half of them ninth graders, scored points in the 1,000, the 1,500, the 4-by-800 relay, and in the shot-put at the league meet Saturday.
Dana Cebulski placed fifth in the 1,000 in 3:10.04 and fifth in the 1,500 in 5:11.15. Cebulski also anchored the fifth-place 4x800 relay team whose other members were Devon Brown, Elena Skerys, and Alyssa Bahel. Annie Schuppe’s personal best throw of 26 feet 6 inches enabled her to place sixth in the shot-put, worth 1 point. The fifth-place showings were worth 2.
“I’m proud of the girls and of the way they improved throughout the season,” said the girls coach, Shani Cuesta. “We had a small squad and half were freshmen, which makes it difficult to score against larger teams in the league.”