INSIDE HIGH SCHOOLS Aggressive and a Little Crazy’: [NASSAU AND SUFFOLK Edition]

Herrmann, Mark. Newsday, Combined editions; Long Island, N.Y. [Long Island, N.Y]. 12 Jan 1988:

At this time of year, when tracks and fields are covered with ice and snow, sprinters are practicing in empty hallways after school, resourceful shot-putters are throwing against concrete walls and pole-vaulters are generally out of luck.

There just aren’t many places indoors that can accommodate someone who insists on running 80 feet with a 14-foot fiberglass stick, planting the stick in the ground and soaring over a bar.

Longwood is one of those places. That explains how Justin Carro and John Drinkwater, juniors at the high school in Middle Island, were practicing the event on the eve of a snowstorm Thursday night while most of their competitors were waiting for the first thaw.

It also helps to explain why Drinkwater won the county outdoor championship with a 14-foot vault last spring and why Carro opened this winter season with a winning effort of 13 feet in the Bishop Loughlin Games.

“I like to go high, getting as high as I can,” Drinkwater said. “It’s the best feeling in the world.” So he is willing to help drag out the large blue landing mats and the silver stanchions that hold the crossbar.

Longwood is one of the few schools on Long Island (St. Anthony’s, Lawrence and Northport are others, according to track officials) equipped for indoor vaulting. It has a fiberglass box built into the gym floor, under a removable wooden panel. The box is the vertex of the vault – it’s the place where the pole is planted.

But this facility, which annually hosts the pole-vault segment of the Suffolk County indoor track championships, does not draw a crowd for workouts.

Pole-vaulters comprise a rare breed, even in the best of climates. It isn’t everyone who is willing to risk a backward fall to a hard surface from 12 feet or an off-line landing that misses the comfort of the mat.

While Longwood winter track coach Joe Reilly asserts that injuries are few – “I think the worst one we ever had was a broken toe,” he said – he admits that a potential vaulter must have distinct characteristics.

“You look for someone who is aggressive, fairly quick and a little crazy,” said Reilly, adding that he met all of those criteria when he was avaulter at Centereach High and Cortland State.

Drinkwater, who isn’t practicing in earnest because he’s recovering from a broken arm sustained in football practice, said he started experimenting with the event when he was in elementary school. Using a broken crossbar obtained by his brother, Kerry, then a varsity vaulter, the younger Drinkwater cleared a height of 7 feet in his backyard.

Carro was recruited on a school ski trip last winter by spring track coach Tony Toro (the man who cajoled district officials into installing the vaulting box eight years ago). Toro noticed Carro’s agility on the slopes, among other things. “I ski kind of fast,” the vaulter said.

He is spending this winter indoors, lifting weights, running hallway sprints and working on vaulting – whenever the basketball teams aren’t practicing or playing.

“We get in here one day a week if we’re lucky,” Reilly said. On some occasions, Reilly and his two vaulters share the gym with coach Phil Reany and his girls basketball squad. “He goes into his halfcourt game,” the track coach said.

Even when the gym is otherwise unoccupied, a visitor can see why more schools don’t carve vaulting boxes into their gym floors. It took two people to painstakingly return the crossbar to its 13-foot-high racks every time Carro knocked it down.

Besides, it’s no easier to practice in an empty gym than it is to work out alongside other athletes. Carro’s 12 approach steps echoed eerily off the gym walls on every attempt. “Anything can break your concentration,” he said, “even the quietness.”

At least Longwood’s program is in the conscientious hands of a kindred spirit. “I love coaching all the track events, but this is like my private event,” said Reilly, who did his master’s thesis on vaulting.

Last Thursday, he remained in the gym past 8 p.m. despite the fact that his teaching duties start at 6:40 in the morning.

As the coach says, you’ve got to be a little crazy.

55 Hurdles – 1. Rizzo (Longwood) 9.6. 2. Hobbs (Bay Shore) 9.7. 3. Mariano (Comsewogue) 10.0. 3,000 – 1. Horton (East Islip) 10:54.0. 2. Pollio (Comsewogue) 11:42.7. 3. Damman (Hauppauge) 12:19.9. 55 Dash – 1. Murray (Bay Shore) 7.7. 2. Lambros (Kings Park) 7.8. 3. Richards (Bay Shore) 7.9. 600 – 1. Melfi (Sachem) 1:44.5. 2. Johnson (Bay Shore) 1:45.7. 3. Leckie (Longwood) 1:46.6. 1,000 – 1. Horton (East Islip) 3:11.9. 2. Pariti (Sachem) 3:24.4. 3. Bergin (Connetquot) 3:35.0. 300 Dash – 1. Waring (Connetquot) 43.7. 2. Caperra (Sachem) 44.0. 3. Lambros (Kings Park) 45.2. 1,500 – 1. Williams (Sachem) 5:17.7. 2. Cunningham (Kings Park) 5:37.9. 3. Not reported (Sachem) 5:45.1. 1,500 Walk – 1. Phierfelder (Connetquot) 9:24.9. 2. McManus (Connetquot) 9:44.4. Shot Put – 1. Kessel (Longwood) 40-3 3/4. 2. Mas (Comsewogue) 30-5 1/2. 3. Nemmetin (Connetquot) 28-4. High Jump – 1. Quinn (Hauppauge) 5-2. 2. Jefferson (Longwood) 4-10. 3. Pizar (Sachem) 4-4. 4×400 – 1. Bay Shore (Johnson, Ewald, Wilson, Taylor) 4:40.6. 4×200 – 1. Sachem (Melfi, Brady, Guzas, Caperna) 1:65.1. 2. Bay Shore 1:57.1. 3. Connetquot 1:59.1. 4×800 – 1. Connetquot (Bergin, Radziul, Kishegyi, Waring) 11:01.5. 2. Longwood 11:09.6. 3. Sachem 11:24.5. Suffolk Crossover Leagues I-III at SUNY-Farmingdale (all running events in meters) Dec. 28

Crossover Meet at SUNY-Farmingdale (Running events in meters except mile, two-mile)

55 High Hurdles – 1. James (Half Hollow Hills West) 7.9; 2. Zunitch (Hills West) 8.6; 3. Manrelli (Longwood) 8.9. Two-mile run – 1. Caskey (Miller Place) 10:14.5; 2. Cruz (Floyd) 10:28.4; 3. Strobel (Floyd) 10:32.2. 55 – 1. Watts (Brentwood) 6.9; 2. (Tie) Minella (Harborfields) and Roux (Harborfields) 7.0. 600 – 1. Fabrizio (West Islip) 1:29.3; 2. Norten (Port Jefferson) 1:29.5; 3. Marelli (Longwood) 1:29.6. 1,000 – 1. Chorma (Miller Place) 2:45.3; 2. Hanrahan (Port Jefferson) 2:49.3; 3. Gorski (Floyd) 2:50.1. 300 – 1. Girard (Miller Place) 39.3; 2. Watts (Brentwood) 39.4; 3. Korsen (Smithtown West) 39.4. Mile – 1. Childs (Floyd) 4:40.9; 2. Krause (Longwood) 4:44.4; 3. Byrene (Longwood) 4:49.8. Mile Walk – 1. Welling (Bay Shore) 7:52.9; 2. Watley (Longwood) 8:12.2; 3. Director (Kings Park) 8:50. 4 x 400 Relay – 1. Port Jefferson 3:46.4; 2. West Islip 3:48.7; 3. Harborfields 3:52.1. 4 x 200 Relay – 1. Half Hollow Hills West (Oliveri, Jamio, Boelker, Winkelman) 1:44.2; 2. Port Jefferson 1:45.0; Longwood 1:45.9. 4 x 800 Relay – 1. Floyd 9:38.6; 2. West Islip 10:39.7. Jan. 17

Championships at SUNY-Farmingdale Running Events in Meters League I

1,600 Walk – 1. Krasnoff (Sa) 7:52.5; 2. Watley (Lo) 8:52.2; 3. Frey (Sa) 9:58.3. 55 High Hurdles – 1. Chiavaro (P-M) 7.9; 2. Whitehead (Br) 8.2; 3. Dudkewic (Sa) 8.2. 3,200 – 1. Krause (Lo) 9:51.4; 2. Gorski (WF) 9:54.6; 3. Cleere (Sa) 10:13.0. 55 – 1. Alston (Lo) 6.5; 2. Bogensberger (WM) 6.9; 3. Jugueta (Sa) 7.0. 600 – 1. Avril (WM) 1:27.3; 2. Moore (Br) 1:27.4; 3. Marrelli (Lo) 1:29.0. 1,000 – 1. Childs (F) 2:40.4; 2. Scioli (Sa) 2:40.9; 3. Byrne (Lo) 2:41.1. 300 – 1. Alston (Lo) 38.6; 2. Bogensberger (WM) 38.8; 3. Jugueta (Sa) 39.6. 1,600 – 1. Cruz (F) 4:43.3; 2. Krause (Lo) 4:43.6; 3. Kelly (WM) 4:48.3. Shot Put – 1. Riemenschneider (Br) 54-1 1/2; 2. Smith (Lo) 46-10 1/2; 3. Stewart (Lo) 44-9 1/2. High Jump – 1. Pedra (Conn) 5-11; 2. Watley (Lo) 5-10; 3. Dudkewic (Sa) 5-8. 4 x 400 Relay – 1. Ward Melville 3:44.4; 2. Longwood 3:46.5; 3. Sachem 3:50.1. 4 x 200 Relay – 1. Connetquot (Stapleton, McKenna, Heinlein, Dumanski) 1:44.8; 2. Ward Melville 1:46.0; 3. Lindenhurst 1:46.7. 4 x 800 Relay – 1. Floyd (Cruz, Gorski, Strobel, Childs) 8:58.6; 2. Connetquot 9:11.8; 3. Longwood 9:16.5. Team Scoring – Longwood 108, Sachem 73, Ward Melville 70, Connetquot 42, Floyd and Brentwood 30, Lindenhurst 18, Patchogue-Medford 13. Jan. 31

Longwood’s Justin Carro and Newfield’s Robert Rothwell qualified in the pole vault for the March 12 state meet at Cornell University. Carro cleared a school indoor record 13-6, which his coach, Joe Reilly, said was the best indoor jump this season on Long Island. Rothwell cleared 13-3 to finish second. The two qualified for the National indoor championships, March 13 at Yale University. Feb.24

Malverne’s 4 x 220-yard relay team set a Long Island record with a second-place finish of 1 minute, 31.34 seconds at the Eastern States meet at Princeton, N.J., late Monday night. Malverne’s team of Jeffrey Tyler, Charles Neal, David Bradshaw and Derrick Adkins finished second – one one-hundredth of a second behind Willingboro, N.J. The previous Long Island record was 1:31.9, set by Uniondale in 1980. Elmont was sixth in 1:33.28.

Adkins also placed third in the 60-yard high hurdles in 7.47 seconds. That is the best time by a New York state athlete this season, according to Jim Spier, a correspondent for Track and Field News.

Longwood‘s Justin Carro won the pole vault by clearing 14 feet, 6 inches. That surpassed the school’s record of 14 feet, set by John Drinkwater in an outdoor meet last spring. Kevin Krause of Longwood was second in the two-mile run in 9:33. March 2