BY MARCUS HENRY
There were several familiar faces who qualified for the state championships. Kyle Merber, Giovanni Signoretti, Barry Franklin, Sarah McCurdy, Jaclyn Marshall and Suejin Ahn are no strangers to success. But there were several new faces who have a chance to make some major waves in Buffalo.
Middle Country's Miles Lewis and Riverhead's Ashley Bell each qualified in three events. Brentwood's Donna Jeanty (400 hurdles, 4x400) and Southampton's Imani Richardson (100, 4x100) qualified in two events. We can't forget about Mt. Sinai freshman Janie Turek, who ran 7:09 in the 2,000-meter steeplechase. High jumpers Ahkim Amada (East Hampton) and Rich Roethel (Sachem East) also qualified for the first time.
It was an especially good day for Roethel, who was jumping 5-8 last spring. The junior, who has jumped 6-5 this season, jumped 6-3 in the final on Saturday.
Comments (1)
I feel as though this article as well as one I read in Newsday about State Quals inadequately represents all the great runners that raced. Various people won events and qualified for State Quals for the first time and recieved no recognition. I understand that you are writing about girls who continually win races and/or were in more than one race. However, what if this were your first spring season racing and you not only qualified for State Quals but at that race beat the national champion and league champions to come out in first place with the fastest time of that season. Well thats what Ashely O'Shea did. Being a racewalker myself I am a big advocate for it. People put racewalking down when really the 1500 meter race is just as taxing as any other race. With writers constantly ignoring racewalking it will never what it could be. Its sad that these girls work their butts off to accomplish what every other racer out there gets recoginized for and yet they aren't given the same treatment. The racewalk at State Quals was the last race of the season due to the fact that it is not going to take place at States. It was the last race, a big upset, a great racing pool, new talent, and an awesome win. If you don't think thats writable then I'm sorry because you missed out on a great race.
RESPONSE: The fact that it was the race walk has nothing do with it not being included in the print story. There are just too many athletes and too many events to include everyone in the story. In the print story I focused on athletes who qualified for the states in multiple events. The fact that the racewalk isn't part of the state meet also plays a factor. If push comes to shove and I'm running out of room, athletes who qualify in one event or are in an event that isn't apart of the state meet would be the first I'd have to take out of the story. Unless someone is setting a record, it's tough for me to justify including a single qualifier over a double qualifier.
It's tough leaving athletes out, but every season I have to leave people out of the story. It's not intentional, it's a reality.