North Shore vaults to success

North Shore has always boasted revered track programs but never before has it been "Pole Vault Capital of Nassau County."

That was the biggest takeaway when the Vikings’ girls and boys indoor track teams competed in the Nassau County Championships last week at St. Anthony’s in Huntington. 

Senior Sophia DeMillio captured the pole vault to win the Nassau Class C championship, beating out athletes from 19 schools. But she did so with an astounding county-best mark of 10 feet, 3 inches – the highest mark of Nassau’s 56 schools. 

Then there was pole-vault paradise for the boys, too, pun intended. 

Junior Caden Paridis won the boys county championship in pole vault with a mark of 10 feet, 9 inches.  The wildest part is Paradis’ prior personal best had been a mere 10 feet.

Paint the pole, maroon.

“It’s never happened that I’m aware of in North Shore history,’’ boys track coach Jason Millard said of the two North Shore squads sweeping the pole-vault titles.  “It was a surprise (for Paridis) but it’s due to his parents putting a lot of effort in giving him private lessons. By the measure, it’s a large jump up from his best, but he’s a novice and it’s the first year he’s taking it seriously.’’ 

While the boys finished third in the county, the girls finished second with the highlights being DeMillio’s title and sophomore Louisa Ludmar capturing the championship in the 1500-meter race walk.

In all, 11 North Shore girls became All-County – a top-3 finish in an event.

 Girls coach Neil Levy can appear jaded by the raging success of his program that wins its Conference 4A annually. Levy called the county performance  “a business-like day.’’ 

  “Winter track is our down season,’’ Levy said. “We try to do OK. Cross country is our primary and spring too. We’re kind of like, “if we do well, we do well”. It’s not the focal part of the year. It’s more of a training season.’’

But he added, “But the pole vault and race walk, we don’t usually do well in. So that was really excellent.’’ 

DeMillio was ecstatic to post the highest score in all of Nassau. Her previous best was 10 feet. The second-place finisher in the event came in at 9 feet, 6 inches, making hers a landslide win.

DeMillio says she’s recently increased her trips to a Holbrook pole-vaulting club. “It was awesome,’’ DeMillio said. “I’ve been training a lot more than I was before.’’

  Ludmar won the 1500-meter racewalk in a time of 8:18.69 as the Vikings dominated that race. Junior Sophia Glazarev finished third, making All-County and freshman Lauren Krupski finished fourth. Senior Madeline Bush was fourth in the 1500 and 1000 meter races. 

Having 11 All-County performers (relay participants are included) could be a program high for winter track, Levy said.  The individual list also included a second-place to Sophia Banner in the girls high jump.

“It was a group effort but 11 county champions, that’s pretty good,’’ Levy allowed. 

The boys registered a third-place overall finish with three All-County athletes. That probably would’ve been a higher number but there were injuries and a couple of Covid-related absences that decimated their relay teams, the boys coach said. 

Still the Viking boys on hand in Huntington held up well - not just in the pole vault. Junior Robert Levy was runner up in the 3,200 run and 1,600 run. Levy is son of the girls coach and showed a strong carryover from his brilliant cross-country campaign.

Senior Sam Sturge, meanwhile, finished third in the 1,600 meter and 3,200 meter run in being named All-County. 

Other boys notables was a fourth place in the 55-meter by senior Michael Ye and a seventh place by John Stehling in the long jump. In addition, senior Ryan Camardella was fourth in the triple jump, sophomore Lukas Costello was fifth in the long jump, and 8th place went to Gabriel Kopcsik in the 300 meters.

“Everything went according to plan,’’ Millard said.