Six members of the Schreiber High School varsity track team and one member of the Sacred Heart Academy varsity track team have qualified for the State Championship, which will be held at Cicero North High School in Syracuse on June 10-11.
The state qualifiers from Schreiber are senior Andrew Adelhardt in the 1600m and 4x800m relay; junior Stanley Elysee in the high jump and 4x800m relay; senior Matthew Kramer in the 4x800m relay; junior Joseph Levine in the 4x800m relay; sophomore Geovany Mendez in the 4x800m relay; and junior Aaron Siff-Scherr in the 800m and 4x800m relay.
The state qualifier meet includes all of Nassau County’s schools. At this meet, an athlete must finish first in their respective event unless they have reached the NY State Standard in which the county then can take only one more athlete. Adelhardt, Siff-Scherr, Levine and Kramer finished first and automatically qualify regardless of their time. Elysee finished first in the high jump, but also hit the State Standard while doing so. Elysee, along with Mendez, will also go to States as alternates in the 4x800m relay.
Going into the Qualifying Meet at North Shore High School, Adelhardt was the first-place seed by a second. He was comfortable during his race as he stayed with the pack. Eventually, he was able to pull away from the pack to battle it out with East Meadows Timothy Euler with just less than 100m left to the race.
The relay was also the first place seed in front of Massapequa by 6 seconds. It was a great race between Schreiber and North Shore for the last mile, but Siff-Scherr was able to edge out North Shore’s anchor, Dylan Welch for the win. Siff-Scherr was also seeded second behind Welch in the 800m and went past him with 50m left to win the race.
According to Head Coach Nicole Dumpson, Elysee was the biggest surprise at the meet. He was tied for 5th place going in and came into the high jump at the last height of 6’2″ to clear on his first attempt and won the competition.
“This will be the largest number of athletes on the boys side that the school has ever sent to the state meet,” said Dumpson.
Sacred Heart sophomore Ellen Byrnes, another Port Washington resident, competed in the Catholic High School Athletics Association Intersectional Championships at Ichan Stadium on Randall’s Island on May 28. She earned a pair of gold medals—one in the 400m hurdles with a time of 1:03.71 and another in the 800m with a time of 2:15.83, qualifying her for the New York State Championship in those races.
