Photos courtesy of the Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District
Coming into the 2023 county championships, the Bellmore-Merrick’s Sanford H. Calhoun High School girls track and field team came into the meet down 18 points as perennial county champions Valley Stream North had a great night before throwing the weight.
The uphill battle continued in the first race of the night as Kaitlyn Stibritz ran a personal best in the 3,000m to take fourth but two spots behind Valley Stream. Within15 minutes and two events the girls pulled close to even.
Sofia Zampella ran in the 1,000m to take second overall as well as earn the second fastest time in school history. As she crossed the line, the long jump was finishing, where Yolina Bastien took the win with Sara Manson finishing third. In the span of 15 minutes the girls scored 24 points.
Manson and Brooke Cancellarich lined up to run the 55m hurdles and Manson earned the county title and Brooke took third; adding another 16 points to the girls total.
Sophia Hines had a night to remember.
“She has more athletic ability than she knows what to do with, and tonight she proved it to the rest of Nassau,” said coach Joseph Migliano.
Hines went into the high jump tied for fifth place, but left as the county runner-up, scoring eight points for the team and creating a 12-point swing against Valley Stream. Hines then joined Manson and Bastien over on the runway for triple jump, where she set a personal best of 35 feet and took second for the team.
Taylor Halvorsen stepped onto the track for the 1,500m Racewalk. She led Omana Phillips to a first and fourth finish, respectively, earning her the title of county champion.
Manson led the way in the triple jump for the team.
“Sara’s been on the team since eighth grade and had made an impact each step of the way,” Migliano said.
He added that Manson is setting the standard for all field athletes in the county, she not only broke the long-standing school record, but she jumped 36 feet 4 inches and is now one of the top jumpers in all of New York State, none the less Nassau County.
She led Sophia and Yolina to a first, second and fourth place finish, earning 20 points for team.
Team captain Julia Baguiao ran a blazing 42 second 300-meter finishing right behind Elmont’s Ashley Fulton, who is the raining State Champion.
“She took herself from a middle of the road runner to someone teams must plan around,” Migliano commented. “She has outworked her competition each step of the way and is the cornerstone of our middle-distance program.”
With the relays approaching, the girls began to pull away from Valley Stream North, looking to claim their second title.
“Traditionally, we would load up the open events and just try to hold on in the relays, but with such a low number of girls this year that just wasn’t possible, we knew we had to come up big in the relays and that’s what we did,” Migliano added.
The 4x800me relay team of Sofia Zampella, Kaitlyn Stibritz, Annie Fitzpatrick and Kate MacNamara ran solid taking second place and scoring eight points for the team. Julia Baguiao led the 4x400m team of Kaitlin Slattery, Makayla Condela and Jamie Menninger-Low to a solid third place finish; adding another six points to the team’s total.
Baguiao stepped back onto the track a few minutes later to anchor the 4x200m team of Sophia Hines, Paulina Kakalos and Yolina Bastien to take a second-place finish. The girls scored an unprecedented 24 points in the relays.
“Many times, in track and field, the team with the most athletes will win the big meets because they can spread girls around and cover all the events; this wasn’t the case for Calhoun, and they didn’t care,” Migliano said. “They took 13 girls into the meet with more heart, will and determination than teams with 45 and walked away with one of the biggest wins in Nassau County history.”
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