This article was written by B-BP Girls Track & Field Coach Vin Ungaro. It was posted by Judy Mottl.
The Bayport-Blue Point Girls Track and Field team competed last week in the County Championship meet at Connetquot high school. In the two-day meet, the Phantoms battled back and forth with a phenomenal Miller Place team and had several lead changes back and forth toward the end of the meet that made it resemble a basketball game more than a traditional track meet. In the end the Bayport-Blue Point girls pulled away on the last event of the day and won its third straight county championship by a mere 2 ½ points!
Day one began with Miller Place sending a message. As the reigning Cross Country and Winter Track andField County Champions, they were on a mission to win their third straight county championship. After dominating performances in the 3000 meter run, discus and long jump, Miller Place built up a 39 to 8 lead against BBP.
Going into day two, the phantoms had to exceed expectations and catch a few lucky breaks just to have a shot at competing with Miller Place! The girls got off to a great start with Courtney Dooley, Katie Saroka, Brianna Delzell and Taylor Darby taking first, second, fourth and fifth respectively and scoring 24 points.
It was just what the team needed but they still found themselves seven points down. In one of many small occurrences that would later prove to be invaluable, Casey Hasher took third in the 100-meter hurdles but just held off an amazing Miller Place runner Hannah Greenfield by a tenth of a second.
Momentum was starting to swing to the Lady Phantoms until….The 1500 meter finals featured Miller Place’s three dominant distance runners. They were only supposed to score 16 points but after a gutsy performance and meet record by their star runner Tiana Guevara, they scored 24 points and deflated the confidence the BBP girls had fought so hard to gain.
Bayport-Blue Point was back to being in hole big as the meet was approaching its conclusion.
Just as the tide seemed to turn decisively in Miller Place’s favor some of the other event scores started to come in. Freshman Kathleen Cibuls won the 400 meter dash with Senior Sam Triani taking fourth. Junior Shelby Wertz was unseeded in the pole vault but ended up tying for fifth scoring a much needed 1 ½ points. Rachel Steinmuller set a new personal record in the 1500 meter race walk scoring fourth. Then came the big news that Kerri Nickel, in her first season on the track team, had run a 10 second personal best in the 800 meters and won the pentathlon. Going into the relays, BBP was right with Miller Place.
The score was Miller Place 84 to Bayport-Blue Points 84.5.
Miller Place had one last ace up their sleeve, the shot put. They had some great throwers and Bayport-Blue Point was only supposed to score one point in the event. With both teams having a team in each of the final three relays, but with the Phantoms having the edge in two out of the relays, Miller Place needed a big score to try to put the meet out of reach for BBP.
The news spread quickly when the shot put results were official: Miller Place 16 points to Bayport-Blue Point’s one. In an instant, the pressure all three BBP relays were under skyrocketed up to the point of depression. At that time, the score was Miller Place 100 with Bayport-Blue Point back at 85.5.
With only three events left, it was a staggering deficit to overcome, but not mathematically impossible.
The 4 x 800 meter relay toed the line with each lead-off leg well aware of what was on the line. Miller Place has the sixth best 4x8 om in the state and breezed to an easy victory in a meet record time.
The first three legs of Brianna Delzell, Taylor Darby and Rebecca Muschio did great in getting the baton to senior anchor Katie Saroka in second place. Before the race, they knew they had only one job to do; take second place. With Saroka in second it seemed like she would be able to hold off just about anyone.
Shoreham-Wading River had other ideas as their anchor leg and freshman phenom was hot in pursuit of Saroka. Both had already raced earlier in the day and were about to finish their last event. Saroka knowing that her team’s success rested on her shoulders was able to battle and hold off the advancing SWR runner to lock up second place. Despite the 4x800’s huge ‘win’ taking second place, the 4x100 meter runners can add and realized that Miller Place just gained another two points on them. The score
now was Miller Place 110 to BBP’s 93.5.
BBP’s sprint coach Chris Burke took them aside and told them quite simply, they needed to win. Even if they did, there was no telling if it would be enough to keep Miller Place from a win. Steph Silver ran a great leadoff leg and handed off to Sam Triani who then handed off to Hasher and BBP closed with 8 grader Dariya Dolan who ran strong through the finish in first place.
Too early for celebrations, if Miller Place took 4th, the meet would be over. The seconds that passed seemed like hours before the official result came in…Miller Place took 6th which only scored a point (which later turned out to be a disqualification for handing off outside of the exchange zone). The score going into the last event of the meet was Miller Place 110 to BBP with 103.5.
Every year the last relay is the 4 x 400. This was to BBP’s advantage since they are the defending small school state champions. Their strength was only part of the story though as Miller Place could afford BBP to win as long as they took fourth. By this time, many of the other division III coaches were aware of how close the meet was and were giving both Miller Place coach Fran Sullivan and BBP coach Vin Ungaro insight as to how many of each team’s legs were fresh, how fast they thought they could go and were frantically doing math to figure out who won in all the different permutations of finishing places between the six teams.
Sam Triani ran a great leadoff leg and handed off in second place to Courtney Dooley who chased down the John Glenn girl in the lead. By the time Casey Hasher got the baton in second place she was on her fourth event of the day. Anyone who knows Casey had complete confidence she would hand off in first place. As she was passing for first place, Miller Place was still hanging on in fourth place. The meet was looking like it would end up with Miller Place winning the county title by half a point! The anchor leg of BBP’s relay was the newly crowned 400 meter county champion Kathleen Cibuls. She again held off Glenn’s best 400 meter runner (who took 2nd behind Kathleen in the open 400) and crossed the line in first place. Bayport-Blue Point just scored 28 points out of 30 in the three relays. Miller Place crossed the line in sixth place.
FINAL SCORE: Bayport-Blue Point 113.5 Miller Place 111
The Bayport-Blue Point girls won their third straight county championship. They end their season as the undefeated League VII Champions and Division III County Champions. In the process the lady Phantoms became the first girls track and field team to win three straight county championships and broke the meet record in the 4x400 meter relay (their time currently second in the small school state division). It was the closest Division III County Championship meet in well over a decade and possibly ever.
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