Track and field: Ursuline runs to top 2022 NY SMR time, gets all-American at Nike Nationals
While most of last weekend's attention on high school track and field was focused on Manhattan and The Armory, where five national records were broken at the New Balance Indoor Nationals, about 30 miles south, Ursuline, Iona Prep athletes and others put on strong performances at the Nike Indoor Nationals on Staten Island.
Ursuline, in fact, gained all-American honors in three relays and Iona Prep gained them in two, while competing at the Ocean Breeze track complex.
Jessica Tejera, Elena Olson, Claire Hickey and Daphne Banino garnered bronze and became all-American in the girls 1,600-meter sprint medley relay. The team ran 4:09.24, the top girls high school SMR time by a New York team this season.
Ursuline also picked up bronze and, with it, all-American honors in the 4x800 girls championship relay as Cara Kelley, Alexa Grassi, Anna Galdabini and Stella Gassman clocked 9:51.37.
And it garnered a third all-American designation with its fifth-place 12:15.15 run in the girls championship distance medley relay. That team included Grassi, Hickey, Gassman and Banino.
Iona Prep clocked the third-fastest time this season by a New York high school sprint medley relay team in finishing eighth in the championship division for all-American.
Marcus Nahim, Ty'Qwell Shipmon, Matthew Sidoti and Antonio Bravo ran 3:33.45.
Bravo also anchored the Gaels' championship division DMR all-American team that included Tommy Flynn, Jordan Hargraves and Matthew Sidoti. It finished second in a NY 2022 No. 6/Westchester No. 1 10:35.68.
Also competing in the championship division, Somers senior Brian Luciano threw the weight a personal-best 66 feet, 5.25 inches to garner all-American honors with an eighth-place finish in a 23-thrower field.
Ursuline junior Prizila Negrete, competing in the second-tier emerging elite division's girls shot put, medaled in fifth place in a 16-thrower field at 36-3.5. She was also eighth in the weight throw at 34-10.25.
Nanuet (Carly Camillieri, Elaina Batista, Alexia Massoud and Samantha Dow) ran 4:20.12 for third place out of 10 teams in the girls emerging elite 1,600 SMR.
Ursuline (Madeline Mobilia, Emily Duhaney, Elena Olson and Cara Kelley) ran a ninth-place 4:29.52
At 6-1.25, Stepinac sophomore Nate Alvarez cleared a greater height in the high jump than any other high school athlete in Westchester this season, and, for that matter, any in the entirety of the Section 1 area. That jump placed him eighth out of 14 in emerging elite.
Competing as an independent, Maddy Chalfin, a Clarkstown South senior, cleared a personal-best 11-3 for seventh place out of 18 in the girls EE division.
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Iona Prep junior Marcus Nahim's 10th-place 60 dash EE prelim run of 7.11 was NY No. 4, as well as Westchester No. 1 for the season.
Nahim, Shipmon, Kyle Stewart and Hunter Zusi also ran a Westchester 2022 No. 1 1:31.98 in breaking Iona Prep's 48-year-old 4x200 relay mark.
They gained bronze in the EE division with that time.
In clocking 9.10 in the EE 60 hurdles prelim, Gael Chris Somersel set a new Catholic High School Athletic Association record for freshmen at the distance and also at 55 meters (8.46).
While placing well back in the pack, Somers junior Jared Googel had a huge personal-best throw in the boys shot put EE division. Googel's PB entering the meet was 35-5.75. But at Nike, he threw 43-8.
Nyack sophomore Freddie Hurson clocked 52.15 for 23rd out of 33 runners in the boys 400-meter EE race. But that time was the sixth fastest at 400 meters in Section 1 for the season. Stepinac sophomore David Davitt was close behind in 25th in 52.19.
Nancy Haggerty covers cross-country, track & field, field hockey, skiing, ice hockey, girls lacrosse and other sporting events for The Journal News/lohud. Follow her on Twitter at both @HaggertyNancy and at @LoHudHockey.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Track: 3 Ursuline relays gain all-American honors at Nike Nationals
