Respass Recovers from Slip to Pace Huntington Winter Track
Huntington coach Ronald Wilson’s heart skipped a beat when he saw senior Quillian Respass slipp at the start of a 55m dash heat in the Blue Devil winter track team’s third meet of the season. Respass recovered and advanced to the finals where he passed rivals from Hills West and Central Islip to cross the finish line first in 6.8 seconds.
Solid performances abounded as Huntington hit its stride with veterans and underclassmen contributing across the board. Juniors Jacob Gayle and Josh Daves ran the 300m race in a sprint, with Gayle finishing first in 38.3 seconds and Daves taking fourth in 39.4. Daves was also second in the long jump with a leap of 20’2 and senior Emmanuel Dume was fourth in the same event with a jump of 18’7. Senior Fritz Barreau looked strong in the shot put with a personal best effort of 42’.
Senior Chris Glaser advanced to the finals in the 55m hurdles before finishing second in 8.4 seconds. Junior Brian Cotter turned in a personal best in the 1000m run placing fourth in 2:48.
Wilson said that sophomores Nicholas Thompson and Connor Knox and juniors Brian Ruggiero and Joe Brown “showed improvement in their events,” and that “freshmen Eric Szilagy, James Okula, Matthew Curley, David Stillman, Kenneth McGrath, and sophomore Michael Garing also showed improvement this week.”
Huntington’s 4 x 200m relay team continues to do well. “We placed first in a race in which we had some technical difficulties,” Wilson said. Instead of cutting across to the inside lane, one of the Blue Devils used the fifth lane, thus giving opponents an advantage. Yet, remarkably, he still managed to hold the lead and Wilson said “awesome efforts” by members of the relay team allowed the group of pull off an upset.
“We look to improve each time we step on the track,” Wilson said. “We’re just glad that we were able to hold on to win.”
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