The Sachem North boy’s track team traveled to Randall’s Island on Saturday to compete in the New York Relays at Icahn Stadium.
The day started off with the 4×100 meter relay team of Eric D’Alessandro, Chris Biryla, Malik Pierre and Kevin Bragaglia winning their heat, posting their best time of the season and missing finals by just over a second. Bragaglia also went on to place 10th in the Long Jump with a mark of 19’ 5½ ”. Adding to a great day of field event performances were Rob Yannotta who placed fourth in the High Jump with a jump of 6’ 2” and Mike Kearns taking fourth in the Shot Put with a throw of 49’ 10¾”.
“The team put out some great times, as well as some really good performances in the field events they entered,” said Sachem coach Bryan Rogers.
Performing well became contagious as the 4×400 meter relay team ran their best time of the season as well. Biryla gave the team a great lead off leg and Conner Urban, James Trofa and Marc Richer all ran personal bests giving the team a final time of 3:37.18
Arguably the best performance of the day for Sachem, came from their 4×800 meter relay team. Jason Karpinski, Ryan Beierle, and Anthony Coccia kept the team in the top three, as they battled for first place with with Midwood High from Brooklyn and Danbury High from Conneticut. Anchored by Alex Lazarich and his monstrous 200 meter kick, Sachem received first place honors with a season best time of 8:05.55.
Lazarich also took third in the invitational 800 with a time of 1:58.93. He was disappointed with the performance and knew he could have taken first. It was easy to see that he took his frustrations out when he received the baton in the 4X800.
Though they did not medal there was one more very outstanding highlight of the day. Sachem’s 4×1600 meter relay of Coccia, John Onken, Patrick Lavan and Daniel Block came with a very important focus. Their goal… to beat the Sachem North record set for that event back in 1972.
“The team was pretty confident that it could be broken; it was just a matter of by how much,” Rogers said.
All team members ran great races and Coccia ran a phenomenal personal best of 4:29. When the baton finally crossed the finish line the team had run 18:56.97 beating the old record by 12.92 seconds. With a performance like that one would expect the record to be around for a long time, but when you have a relay that consists of three sophomores and one junior that won’t be the case. That record will definitely go down again next year and possibly two years from now as well.
After having such an outstanding day, it’s easy to understand why many Arrows Track members are excited to make the trip back to Icahn Stadium next year.
