The boys indoor track team traveled to the Armory Track in Washington Heights to compete in the annual Bishop Loughlin Games on Saturday, December 20th. They raced against teams from all over the east coast in a wide array of events, which included relays, triple jumping, distance races, and hurdles. The boys, despite not placing in the top fifty teams overall, set numerous personal records in their events. Junior Abdoulaye Diallo beat the school record in his leg of the 4 x 800 meter relay. Additionally, the boys had top twenty place finishers in the 600 meter run and the one mile run.
In the 4 x 800 meter relay, Abdoulaye finished his 800 meter leg with a time of 2:02, beating the previous school record, which he had previously set, by one second. He along with senior captain Yash Sharma and sophomores Muhamed Bicic and Justice Williams placed fourteenth out of 50 teams with a time of 8:32. Justice also set a personal record of 2:11 in his leg of the race.
Abdoulaye remarked on his performance saying, “Breaking the record I previously set depicts my progression throughout the season thus far. It shows pushing myself at practice and going to the weight room has its benefits.”
Two THHS teams of four runners each competed in the sprint medley relay. The first team, comprised of junior Benjamin Chang and sophomores Patrick Menchaca, Adam Sosnicki, and Justice, completed the race with a time of 4:16 and placed 26th out of 39 teams. The second team, comprised of sophomore Agastya Vaidya and juniors Holman Guaman, Aidan Moran, and Evan Noblesala, finished shortly thereafter. They placed 28th with a time of 4:17.
Holman, who ran in this particular event for the first time, reflected on his performance saying, “As I ran I was nervous because I’m not a sprinter; I tend to do longer distances, but the one thing going through my mind was to not mess up the stick pass. I’m not sad I didn’t PR because I haven’t practiced for this race specifically, but it was a good race.”
Sophomore Adam Sosnicki participated in THHS’ only field event at the meet, the triple jump. He placed 45th out of 45 athletes and jumped a distance of 33 feet, 5.25 inches.
The boys also competed in several other races. Abdoulaye placed tenth out of 177 runners in the 600 meter run with a time of 1:25. In the same race, Evan placed 130th with a time of 1:39. Junior Dysron Marshall placed 135th out of 235 runners in the 300 meter dash, finishing with a time of 39.63 seconds. In the one mile run, Muhamed placed 17th out of 158 runners with a time of 4:38. Yash placed 48th with a time of 4:48 and junior Matthew Sullivan set a personal record of 5:05, placing 105th in the same race. In the 55 meter hurdles, Justice set a personal record of 8.62 seconds, placing 49th out of 106 runners. Senior captain Minhaj Rahman and Aidan placed 51st and 99th, respectively. Minhaj ran with a time of 8.69, while Aidan ran it in 10.63 seconds.
Overall, the boys, although having top twenty place finishers in several events, fell mostly in the middle of the pack at the meet. They were up against tougher competition than that of PSAL meets, as they raced against top-ranked teams representing various schools from the east coast.
“The competition at this meet was better than any competition we will see all year, as you have teams from along the eastern seaboard coming, so it’s a great variety of teams and competition,” Matthew said. He also commented on his team’s performance saying, “Our team as a whole did nicely; we were up against fierce competition, but we pulled through and did a good job.”
Justice believed that the team could have done much better saying, “I believe we’re capable of doing well in difficult meets like this, but I must say that yesterday, we did not stand up to the competition. We’ll just have to do better next meet, which is something I know we’re capable of.
The next meet is the PSAL Holiday Classic at the Armory on Sunday, December 28, 2014. There, the boys expect to perform well against, as Matthew phrases it, more “familiar competition.”
