Holy cow.

That’s how Samantha Walker, head coach of our varsity boys track and field team, described her athletes’ performance at Section V State Qualifiers at Haverling High School this past weekend. 

For starters, Jordan M. punched his ticket to the New York State Track and Field Championships later this week for the second year in a row in pentathlon by winning the event with a monster performance of 3,103 points, 422 points ahead of the 2nd place finisher. 

Jordan not only broke his own school record in pentathlon from last season by 159 points, but also set a new long jump record of 20 feet, 11.25 inches, 1.75 inches more than previous record holder Joshua Deragon’s distance of 20 feet, 9.5 inches. 

Teammate Hunter R. also had a monster day, taking 3rd in pentathlon with 2,501 points - a personal best by 33 points. 

This was Hunter's first year on the team, where he tried any and every event thrown his way. 

“He put his entire heart and soul into it and did an absolutely incredible job,” said Walker. 

Another career-best performance came from Blayden B., who raced his way to an 8th place finish in the 110-meter hurdles with a time of 16.59 seconds. 

Blayden’s career-best time at the start of the season was 17.84 seconds, meaning he cut more than a second of time this year - incredible! 

“Blayden is on the hunt next year for the school record in this event, being only 0.23 seconds away from it,” said Walker. 

Next up was Luigi M. in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, where he fought his way to 4th place with a time of 10:57.98, just 4 seconds behind his best of the season.

After that, Finn S. put up his best time of the season in the 1,600-meter run with a time of 4:35.91, good for 3rd place. Finn got pushed to the back of the race, again, and fought his way up to the top 3, finishing only 3 seconds behind the winner in the event and just missing qualifying for the state championships. 

David O. lined up for the 400-meter hurdles, finishing in 9th place with a time of  1:01.34, just 0.1 seconds off his career-best time. 

Wyatt K. then took his chance fighting the heat in the 3,200-meter run with an 8th place finish and his 3rd best performance in the event with a time of 11:02.93. 

Brice B. and Robert B. both competed in the triple jump, going head-to-head to see which would beat the other in the friendly competition. This time, Brice ended up on top with a jump of 38 feet, 8 inches, good for 13th place, with Robert close behind with a distance of 38 feet, 1 inch. 

Photo courtesy of Samantha Walker