Blue Devils Win State Relay Championship
All the training and sacrifices paid off for the Huntington High School boys’ track 4x400m relay team as the Blue Devils swept to a first place finish at the New York State Track & Field Championships at Cornell University last Saturday. It is the school’s first state winter track relay title ever.
Huntington’s relay team was the youngest to reach the finals and as it turned out, it was also the best. Sophomores Kyree Johnson and Lawrence Leake and juniors Exayvian Crowell and Infinite Tucker covered the race in 3:27.76, comfortably ahead of North Rockland, Amsterdam, Monroe-Woodbury, Valley Stream and Skaneateles, which rounded out the top six.
Johnson ran a tough first leg and his teammates took it from there. There was some traffic on the back stretch, which Huntington fortunately didn’t get mixed up in. Crowell and Leake both turned in strong legs to keep the Blue Devils in the lead. Tucker took the baton for the final segment and was outstanding, extending Huntington’s advantage and giving the team a convincing victory. While it wasn’t the relay team’s fastest time, the group did more than enough to win.
Huntington head coach Ron Wilson urged his athletes to “go hunt for success” in a group text message he sent to them early Saturday morning. “It was a good day to be hungry for a state championship,” he said.
Wilson sent the relay team members an earlier message on Friday night. “I sent them a quote from the movie Remember the Titans, because we weren’t given any respect, even though we were the No. 1 seed,” the coach said Saturday afternoon. The message included a series of lines uttered by Coach Herman Boone, played by actor Denzel Washington in the hit movie: “I don’t scratch my head ‘til it itches and I don’t dance until I hear some music. I will not be intimidated; that’s just the way it is!”
Wilson followed the movie lines by telling his athletes: “It’s just the way I feel fellas. I don’t care about who they say is really good. We’re here for a reason and that’s because we’re just as good, if not better. The Blue Devils fear no one!”
Huntington traveled to Ithaca on Friday morning with the rest of the Section XI team. The athletes worked out later in the day at Barton Hall at Cornell, the annual site of the state winter track and field championships. Wilson made sure the group was well fed and tucked into bed early so the Blue Devils would be ready for a run at the state crown.
The planning paid off and the event unfolded as Wilson and assistant coach Eli Acosta hoped it would.
Tucker Places 4th in 600m
Tucker earlier won a fourth place medal in the 600m run with a gutty performance. He was the highest placing junior in the state in the race, covering the distance in 1:22.39, off his season best time of 1:21.97. The teenager finished a mere 25/100ths of a second out of second place.
“It was a tough race, but it was a great race,” Blue Devil coach Shawn Anderson said. “Infinite ran strong and he fought for it the whole way.”
Tucker was clipped at the finish line by Lynbrook’s Luke Germanakos (1:20.60), Niagara Falls’ Anthony Hawthorne (1:22.145) and Greece Odyssey’s Calvary Rogers (1:22.146).
Petryk Finishes 6th in 1000m
Senior Suzie Petryk won All-State honors when she finished sixth out of 32 runners in the 1000m run in the girls’ track and field state championships, which followed the boys’ meet in Barton Hall at Cornell.
The Section XI champion in the event, Petryk ran a strong race last Saturday afternoon. The teenager crossed the finish line in 3:00.20, slightly less than three seconds off her personal best effort of 2:57.47.
Petryk trailed Rush-Henrietta sophomore Sammy Watson (2:53.33), Bronxville sophomore Kaitlin Ryan (2:55.29), Mamaroneck junior Katie Devore (2:58.17), Corning senior Madeline Ustanik (2:58.63) and Sweet Home sophomore Sam Peterman (2:59.25).
The Huntington teenager had to sprint to the finish line in a pack of talented runners to nab sixth place and a state medal.
Blue Devil girls’ coaches Debra Cheskes and Shawn Anderson were pleased with Petryk’s performance in the race. “She found herself in the middle of the pack and she held her spot,” recounted Anderson following the race. “All the girls were off as it’s a little slower track. But, Suzie ran a great race and positioned herself well to get that hardware.”