Rye High School Boys’ Track
Garnets Bring Home the League Title
By Melanie Cane
The track and field league championship meet was held May 7 and 8 at Byram Hills and Harrison High School. For the past five years Harrison has beat out the Garnets for the title, but this year the Garnets eked past the Huskies by five points to win the championship.
Rye’s runners dominated the scoring and senior captain Marek Nowak was the star of the meet. He won three individual events (800, 1600, and 3200 meters) plus anchored the winning 4x 800m relay team behind Alec Radtke, Cian Galligan, and Tim Rudolph-Math. Other winners were senior Anders Jensen in the 400m hurdles and John Goldszer, Pat Davis, Jensen, and Connor Maloney in the 4x 400m relay. Senior Floris Van Beurden was second in the 4 X 100 relay and third in both the 400m and 110m hurdles. Galligan scored important points in the distance events as well.
Although the Huskies dominated the field events, Rye scored important field points: Chris Olnos (pole vault), Maloney (high jump), Joe Halasz (triple jump), and Preston Greto (shot put). Max Girard and Jack Hirsch, respectively, scored unexpected points in the steeplechase and pentathlon.
“It felt incredible to win the meet,” said Nowak, “especially because the results of the late relays were not tallied into the total points until the meet was long over.”
Coach Jim Yedowitz thought the win was extra-special because it was the seniors’ last chance to beat the Huskies and because so many boys contributed vital points.
In the County meet at Harrison on May 20, the Garnets placed 12th out of 45 teams. Nowak came in second in the mile, with a time of 2:09.411, 8 seconds better than his personal best and the eighth best time ever for a Rye runner. He missed first place by 0.3 seconds.
Coach Jim Yedowitz said, “Marek works incredibly hard and will run with an improved confidence and determination in the upcoming Section meet at Beacon.”
Marek Nowak leading the pack in the 3200m race
Floris Van Beurden displaying his talents in the 100m hurdle event.
