Brewster Bears Win Track and Field League Championships

BREWSTER—For the second year in a row, the Brewster High boys and girls spring track teams are League 1-B Champions. Competing over Tuesday and Thursday of last week the boys won with a score of 211 points, 59 points higher than second-place Lakeland/Panas. The girls finished with 176 points, which put them 42 points ahead of second place Mahopac.

Greg Hodge and Shawn McDonnell pass baton in relay competition at league championships. PHOTO SUBMITTEd The boys headed into the second day of competition trailing by one point but were confident in their chances of winning their eighth straight league title.

“We knew going into day two we had too much ammo,” said coach Joe Scelia. “We just dominated on day two.”

Led by junior Andrew Sniffen’s distance of 118’7”, the boys took five of the top six spots in discus. Seniors Evan Kaschura and James Schoenig rounded out the top three, while fellow seniors Steve Green and Danny Santiago took fifth and sixth.

Brewster’s Ariana Bottalico had a strong day at the league championships. PHOTO SUBMITTEd Sniffen took first in the shot put as well with a distance of 44’8.5”, Schoenig and Greene finished second and third.

Greene’s distance of 150’6” in the javelin earned him first place while Sniffen finished third and Schoenig finished fifth.

Seniors Mike Thomas and James Courte took second and fourth in the long jump, junior Jason DiNardo finished fifth. DiNardo cleared a height of 5’10” to win the high jump, he also finished third in the triple jump.

Courte picked up a pair second place finishes, he narrowly beat out DiNardo in the triple jump with a distance of 41’5.25”, and beat out teammate Shawn McDonnell for second in the 400 meter hurdles.

“The depth of our guys is really strong,” said Scelia. “We have so much in the throws and jumps, we pretty much dominated field events.”

Sophomore Charlie Carr finished second in the 3,200, and third in the 1,600. Thomas and Justin Maguire finished fourth and fifth in the 3,200.

Mauricio Madureira’s score of 2453 was good enough to earn the sophomore second place in the pentathlon. Freshman Dominic Saljanin finished fifth, and junior Nick Ghelarducci finished sixth.

The boys 4x800 relay team of Thomas, Carr, Maguire, and sophomore Adam McIe finished first with a time of 8:27.5.

“Charlie anchored the last leg of a great race, he out kicked the last guy,” said Scelia.

The 4x400 relay team of Courte, Johnson, senior Shawn McDonnell, and junior Greg Hodge took first with a time of 3:31.0.

“Every year it’s the last race of the meet,” said Scelia. “We always seem to win in celebratory fashion, the last hundred meters our guy just pulls away, and it was the same thing this year. It capped off a great league title.”

The Brewster High boys and girls teams both won their respective league championships last weekend. PHOTO SUBMITTED While the boys were expected to do well, the victory by the girls was a bit unexpected.

“The girls was kind of a surprise,” said Scelia. “We thought Mahopac and Lakeland/Panas had more complete teams than we did, but our girls just rose up. Our young kids came through, our veterans came through, and we won by a pretty convincing margin.”

The girls had seven first place finishes, three of which belonged to senior Natalia Poljak, who finished first in the shot put, javelin, and discus, and took fourth in the triple jump.

“She scored 34 points for us,” said Scelia. “The most someone can score is 40, so she was huge for us, she’s having a great senior year.”

With Poljak leading the way the girls took five of the top six spots in the shot put. Senior Victoria Arturi, freshman Jazmin Pryce, sophomore Lynesja Cox, and junior Michelle Keegen finished third through sixth.

In the discus senior Victoria Albertassi and Cox finished second and third behind Poljak, sophomore Angelica Jara came in fifth.

“The throws were huge,” said Scelia. “We knew we would do well in the throwing events, we didn’t think we would get as many spots as we did. We knew Natalia would probably win all three throws, we didn’t expect to get all the tail end points. We kind of cleaned up, that was huge for us.”

Freshman Ariana Bottalico had two first place finishes of her own, she won the 3000 meters in 11:25.7, and the 1500 meters in 4:53.4. She also finished third in the 800 meters with a time of 2:31.6.

“Ariana in the 1,500 was a phenomenal race,” said Scelia. “She won against a really strong girl from Carmel, she ran her personal best, and broke her own school record”

Bottalico was also joined by seniors Nicole Zazzero and Miriam Munn, as well as freshman Jess Zurheide in the 4x800 relay, they finished in first with a time of 10:23.7.

Zurheide finished third in the 400-meter hurdles, and fifth in the 800-meter dash, Zazzero took fourth in the 3000 and the 1500. Seventh grader Jamie Maguire finished sixth in the 3000 with a time of 11:41.7, giving the Bears three top six finishers in the event.

Junior Sam Waruch took first in the 400-meter hurdles with a time of 1:13.1, second in the long jump with a distance of 15’7”, and fifth in the triple jump with a distance of 29’10”. Fellow junior Ally Tschinkel finished third in the triple jump with a distance of 31’7”.

“We just rallied together and did our best,” said Scelia. “It was good to see our young athletes and score.”

The Bears next meet is the Glenn D. Loucks games from Thursday May 6 through Sunday May 9 at White Plains High School.