Uniondale continues to show progress

Uniondale’s boys’ track and field program is a team budding with fresh new talent, looking to take the next step. 

 On May13, the Knights took a critical jump towards doing so at the Nassau Division 1A championships. 

 “Many of the kids who were scoring points for us are fairly new,” said assistant coach Claude Blue. 

   Blue went on to say a lot of the younger kids didn’t run track in the indoor season, so many are in their first or second years competing in spring track.

Many of Uniondale’s participants in the 1A meet were able to place in the top three of their events and set personal and/or season bests with their times and marks they achieved. 

 Jaheim Foote finished in first place in the 400 intermediate hurdles with a time of 56.92 seconds and also captured the 110 high hurdles in 15.46 seconds. He provided the Knights with their only individual division titles on the day. Both times proved to be personal bests for the junior, who had a spectacular showing.

“He’s our team captain and most experienced runner,” Blue said. “He did what we expected him to do. It was expected for him to run his best time.” 

Christopher Jean Simon took third place in the 110 hurdles with a time of 16.80 seconds to give the knights two of the top three runners in the event. 

In the 100m dash, sophomore Romain Eccleston ran a time of 11.60 seconds in the opening round and then followed up with an 11.66 in the finals to bring home another third-place finish 

Senior Emmanuel Nestor placed third in the 400m dash with a time of 51.10 seconds. This was a remarkable feat, Blue noted, considering this was Nestor’s first year competing track and field. 

In the 4-x-400 relay the Knights trotted out runners Nestor, Eccleston, freshman Saishun Lamour and Foote to compete respectively each in the first through anchor legs of the event. They finished with a time of 3:29.08 in the relay, which was good enough for third place. 

In the long jump, sophomore Everton Bailey reached a mark of 21-feet, 3 ¾ inches, which was good for a runner-up finish — Uniondale’s highest finish outside of Foote’s events. 

 Blue stated what Bailey did was tremendous because Uniondale’s school track is under maintenance so they didn’t have much opportunity to practice the long jump and he still placed well in the event.

Sophomore James Sylvain competed in the long jump as well and finished fourth with a mark of 20’7.25”. 

Next up is the Nassau County Class AAA championship meet at Westbury High School May 22, after Herald press time. While he expects big things, Blue still manages to look ahead to the future of the program. 

“We have really big expectations for next year,” he said. “This year was more showing us what their capabilities are. Next year we are going to push to get more out of them.”