Blue Devil Boys’ Track Stays Perfect
When the Huntington and East Hampton boys’ track and field teams squared off against each other on a recent afternoon, both squads were undefeated. But, a couple of hours later, only the Blue Devils were still perfect, besting the Bonackers by just three points, 68-65.
“What a meet,” exclaimed Ron Wilson, Huntington’s head coach. “The excitement pretty much lasted the entire evening. It felt as if I was back on the sidelines of an exciting football game with the kids cheering each other on, the crowd on their feet, and coaches pacing up and down the track.”
Once again, the meet came down to the relay events, only this time it was Huntington that needed to win two-of-three races. Unfortunately, the Blue Devils lost the first relay, the 4 x 800m. While Wilson has the utmost confidence in his 4 x 100m relay team, he knew that East Hampton had three exceedingly swift runners among its 4 x 400m relay squad. So, he started toying with the idea of mixing and matching his final two relay teams with the goal of coming up with two winning combinations. “However, we decided to just leave them the same and have faith in each other,” Wilson said.
The 4 x 400m squad, which consists of lead runner Chris Glaser, second leg David Acton, third leg Brian Cotter and anchor Stevens Merilan, ran to glory and clinched Huntington’s victory. “We were behind about 30m when our third leg, Brian Cotter received the baton, however, he was able to cut that down to about 10m when he handed the baton off to Stevens Merilan,” Wilson explained. “Coming around the final curve, Stevens started gaining, closing some ground and down the stretch both men came fully engaged.” But it was Merilan who crossed the finish line first in a time of 3:37. It is the relay team’s best so far this season.
Blue Devil Notes: Huntington’s "weightmen" (Eddie Santos, Fritz Barreau, and Chris Sandoval) swept the discus placing first through third with throws over 100 feet . . . Santos and Barreau also placed first and second in shot put with throws of 45'11 and 45'10, respectively. . . Quillian Respass, Josh Daves, and Emmanuel Dume swept the 100m dash and the 200m dash . . . Brian Cotter won the 1600m run and placed second in the 800m run.
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