Rye Neck Track & Field
By Mitch Silver
Rye Neck’s first dual meet of the outdoor season April 4 saw the Panthers lose both the boys’ and girls’ team meets to rival Blind Brook while posting some strong individual performances. Two months after anchoring the school’s record-setting 4×400 meter relay team indoors, junior Brendan Tuohy took the mile in decisive fashion, running 4:58. Then, less than 15 minutes later, he won again — this time sprinting to a 12.7-second victory in the 100 meters. To double in any meet is a great achievement, but a distance-sprint double is practically unheard of.
Other strong performances on the boys’ side included Rye Neck’s sweep in the discus. Sophomore James McSweeney won with a 72’ throw, classmate Edward Lopez was second with 60’11”, and junior James Lord took third with a toss of 55’ 7”. Junior captain Chris Ortiz’s time of 19.4 seconds was good for second in the high hurdles, and fellow captain Raymond Rivituso’s 1:08 time in the 400 hurdles also took second.
Up-and-coming freshman Lucas Pasquina took third in the mile.
On the girls’ side, freshman Atika Alradi won the 400 meter in 1:09 and took second in the high hurdles with a time of 20.6 seconds. Sophomore Ema Jovanovic was third in the sprint in 14.5 seconds.
The Panthers were strong in the weights: Sophomore Melissa Valqui threw 47′ to win the discus and put the shot 19’5” for second. Classmate Vanessa Giraldo was third in both the discus and shot with throws of 29’6” and 18’11” respectively.
As Assistant Coach Marcella Scalise said afterwards, “It’s still early in the season and we’ve seen a lot of great performances. We are hoping to take what we learned yesterday and apply it going forward.”
