Mountanos is county track champion

Less than a second separated the top two finishers in the final 600-meter race of the winter track season. It was Wantagh High School runner Chris Mountanos who crossed the finish line just ahead of Bethpage’s Dan Midgette to become the Nassau County Class B champion.

Mountanos, a senior, finished with a time of 1 minute, 26.07 seconds at the county championship meet at St. Anthony’s High School on Feb. 3. “It was pretty unbelievable,” said Mountanos, 17. “It was definitely a great race and not an easy one. I had to keep going all the way to the end. Very tough but well worth it.”

Already gifted with speed, the three-season runner participated in cross-country in the fall to build up his stamina with longer races, so he would be poised for a run at the county title in the winter season. The plan paid off.

“It was something we’ve been setting up pretty much all season,” said coach Jordan Ashley, who said he has watched Mountanos’s confidence grow tremendously over the past two seasons. “He’s a naturally fast kid. He goes into every race thinking there’s nobody in that race that can beat him.”

Ashley said that Mountanos’s race with Midgette was “not a comfortable win” and close from start to finish. He was proud of his athlete for persevering, winning by just three-tenths of a second. The race was three laps around St. Anthony’s indoor track. Most winter tracks meets are held there, and Mountanos racked up first-place finishes throughout the season, earning a chance to compete for the county title.

“I really wanted to win this as my last time and just go all out,” he said. “I felt like I was really prepared.”

Following in the footsteps of his oldest sister, Mountanos started running in middle school, and has been on the varsity squad since his freshman year. Getting ready for the county championship meant a lot of intense workouts — some days were several short runs with little rest in between, and others were three- to five-mile runs.