For Yani Cuesta, East Hampton High School’s girls winter track coach, Saturday was memorable not only because of its subzero temperatures, but also for the fact that her 4-by-400 relay team of Leslie Samuel, Melina Sarlo, Meredith Spolarich, and Ryleigh O’Donnell won that event in 4 minutes and 16.10 seconds.
It was the first time Cuesta, who is in her 18th year of coaching indoor track here, could remember an East Hampton entry winning an event at a county small schools meet. The Bonackers were seeded second, behind East Islip (which has run a 4:11.39), but opposing coaches tended to doubt the quartet’s strength inasmuch as the 4:13.74 the girls ran at a recent meet at the 168th Street Armory in New York City was run on a banked (and thus faster) track.
Soon, those coaches were to find out Cuesta’s team was for real. “We went in confident, and it was beautiful to see,” the coach said by phone Sunday. “Beautiful to watch. Leslie gave us a good start, and passed off to Melina in third place. On the second curve, Melina pushed through a sea of girls and took the lead. Meredith held that lead, and Ryleigh ran the anchor leg super strong. It was very exciting.”
East Hampton’s was the third-fastest 4-by-4 relay time of the day. Only Commack (4:14.32) and North Babylon (4:15.96), whose teams topped the large schools’ contestants, were faster. While she won’t know for sure until tonight’s seeding meeting, Cuesta said she presumed that Samuel, Sarlo, Spolarich, and O’Donnell had qualified for the state qualifier meet that’s to be held at Suffolk Community College-Brentwood on Monday.
Not only did the 4-by-4 relay team turn in a singular performance, but Bonac’s small squad of 18 placed fifth, with 29 points — the highest finish Cuesta can remember — among the 23 schools that vied in the small schools meet. Westhampton Beach topped the list, with 66 points, after which came Bayport-Blue Point (54), Port Jefferson (46), East Islip (45), East Hampton, Sayville (27), Islip (27), Mount Sinai (26), Deer Park (24), Comsewogue (18),
Amityville (16), Southold (14), Eastport-South Manor (13), Miller Place (10), Half Hollow Hills West (9), Shoreham-Wading River (9), John Glenn (8), Kings Park (6), Hauppauge (5), Babylon (4), Rocky Point (4), Mattituck (3), and Southampton (2).
“Our little team of 18 rocked,” Cuesta said.
In other events, Samuel, a senior from Bridgehampton, won the long jump with a personal-best — and school-record — leap of 17 feet 10 1/4 inches, bettering the 17-7 that Gabby McKay did in 2016.
Samuel was sixth in the 55-meter dash in 7.72, after having run a personal-best 7.64 in the semifinal.
O’Donnell, a junior, placed third in the 600 in 1:40.01, just shy of her sub-1:40 goal. Cuesta said O’Donnell probably would have broken 1:40 had she not been thrown off pace “by some elbow-throwing early on,” and had she not had to go wide into the third lane on the last of the three laps to pass people.
Another junior, Dylan Cashin, placed ninth in the 3,000 in a personal-best 10:58.95, and 14th in the 1,500 in 5:15.58, missing a P.R. by .08 seconds. Sara O’Brien, a Pierson ninth grader who is steadily improving, placed 14th in the 3,000 in a personal-best 11:28.70, and 20th in the 1,500 in a personal-best 5:27.30.
Sarlo placed sixth in the shot-put with a throw of 30 feet, a personal best that put her within range of Sarah Van Asco’s indoor record of 31-9 1/2, and Spolarich was sixth in the high jump, at 4-8, four inches lower than her best.
“She’s done better,” said Cuesta, “but last week was so cold that we didn’t get a chance to change her run-up to the bar, which we feel she needs to do. Because of the cold we told our runners to taper down, and it seemed to work with them because most of them had P.R.s in the meet, but the downtime wasn’t good for Meredith. She needs to push herself. As it is, with her 5-0 she’s seventh in the county.”
