Baldwin on track for state meet

Baldwin senior Pascal Bastien jumped for joy at last week’s Nassau County Class A Winter Track and Field Championships at St. Anthony’s on Feb. 8 — literally, winning individual titles in both the long jump and triple jump. 

But he didn’t stop there, running the anchor leg of a 4x400-meter relay team that captured second place and qualified for the upcoming New York State Public High School Athletic Association Championships at Cornell University on March 1.

“They’ve been talking about this since November,” coach Rich Carroll said of the relay team, which qualified for the state meet on Feb. 11, taking first place with a time of 3 minutes, 33.48 seconds. “I loved their confidence, but as a coach, I told them we had to take it one meet at a time. But the guys did it. They left it all on the track, and you couldn’t find five happier people.”

Along with Bastien, the relay team includes Malik White, Emmerson Felix, Tyshawn Harris and Kevin Atkinson, an alternate who replaced White at the county meet and ran the first leg. The team was nosed out at the finish line by Syosset by just three 100s of a second. White suffered a hamstring strain earlier in the meet, yet still managed to gut out his 400 in the semifinals before being replaced. “He suffered a [strain] in the 300 [-meter dash],” Carroll said. “I don’t know how he did it, but he gave us a quarter-mile in the 4x400 for the semis.”

Bastien will focus on the triple jump and relay at Cornell, having landed a personal best of 45 feet, 9.75 inches in the triple jump at the county meet. “He has the innate ability to see something, digest it and go with it,” Carroll said of Bastien’s versatility on the track. “Because of his work ethic, he does have the stamina to do this.”

In the triple jump, Bastien has gained more experience and has impeccable technique, even though his straight-line speed translates well to the long jump as well. “They kind of go hand in hand because most long jumpers are triple jumpers,” Carroll said. “It’s a different technique for each, but you’re coming off the same platform.”

Felix also finished fourth in the 55-meter dash, while Atkinson took sixth in the 300. Junior Mike Webster missed qualifying for the state meet in the triple jump by just a quarter-inch. He, like Bastien and the relay team, will be competing on Friday at St. Anthony’s in the Elite Meet, with some of the best athletes on Long Island.

“[The qualifiers] are super-excited because they saw their dream come true,” Carroll said. “I couldn’t be happier for them. It’s been a lot of fun. To me it’s been one of the greatest things in the world to watch the kids compete, and I’m enjoying the heck out of it.”

Grierson paces Lady Bruins

Senior Crystal Grierson paced the Lady Bruins’ track and field team at the Class A championships, finishing third in the 1,000-meter run with a time of 3:08.92. She was also part of a 4x400 relay that finished sixth. Seniors Guilise Gondre and Chinira Lovick and junior Charlotte Gondre were also part of the relay. Guilise Gondre finished third in the 55-meter hurdles, while Lovick took fourth in the 1,500.