48.0°,
Light Rain Great eight for VSN boys' track
New group of rivals, stiffer competition, same result.
Ryan John won the long and triple jumps and Sedgeley Duperval had top three finishes in the 55- and 300-meter dashes as the Valley Stream North boys’ track and field team made its maiden voyage in Nassau Class B a successful one by claiming an eighth straight county title on Feb. 9.
Senior Daniel Ellis won the 55-meter hurdles and finished third in the high jump to help the Spartans collect 110 points, 32 more than Calhoun. North had won the last seven Conference C titles before its latest triumph.
“Any time you go up, you’re going to have a lot more competition,” VSN coach Mike Frazer said. “We had that streak going, but we handled what we had coming off the Covid year. We did a good job covering as many events as we could [and] we had a bunch of guys that knew exactly what they were going to do.”
The girls finished third with 77.5 points thanks to senior Ariana Paul, who won the long and triple jumps while placing second in the 55-meter dash. Junior Gabriela Mensah helped the 4x200 relay team finish third in addition to her fourth place showing in the long jump, senior Micaela Creo (pole vault) and sophomore Nattaly Lindo (shot put) were runners-up, and sophomore Moanna Thelusca recorded a personal-record throw in the shot put while finishing fourth.
John reached 21 feet in three of his six attempts in the long jump, including 21 feet, 6.5 inches on his fifth and sixth tries to clinch the title. His best jump of 46-9 in the triple jump was over four feet longer than the nearest competitor and he co-lead the high jump before Great Neck North’s Adam Namdar cleared 6-4 to edge him out.
“He’s just a well-rounded jumper,” Frazer said. “What hurt him was when you do all three jumps, it all happens at the same exact time. We were really limited on the number of meets that we went to this year, so he didn’t get a lot of that practice running from event to event and I think that caught up with him.”
John also won both events at the state qualifier on Feb. 16, including a season-best 47-7 in the triple jump. He was also a member of the victorious 4x400 relay team with Duperval, Guyalden Chery and Jonathon Xavier.
Paul will also be at Staten Island in two weeks after winning the triple jump and finishing second in the long jump.
“She’s just a leader in the jumps in Nassau County,” Frazer said. “[She’s] steady, consistent.”
Duperval, a sophomore, was second in the 55-meter dash with a time of 6.83 seconds, three-hundredths ahead of the third-place finisher and ran a season-best time of 37.42 in the 300-meter dash to finish third.
