Rams and Lady Rams win 11 medals in Rasbeck Relays

Port Chester's senior All-Star quarterback Colin Taylor lost the Westchester County long jump championship Monday (5/22) at Lakeland by slightly more than two inches to Iona Prep's Justin Hargraves who soared 21:5.2 to Taylor's 21:3.6. That turned out to be the difference between a gold and silver medal. Ironically, Taylor was coming off a league championship win by a fraction of an inch over Horace Greeley's Ben Ho with Taylor recording a long jump of 21:3.50 to Ho's 21:3.0. But Taylor will get a golden chance to do it all over again, hopefully with a first place finish, Friday (5/26) in the Section 1AA championships at 2 p.m. in Arlington. And odds are that Taylor and the T&F team will come away with medals no matter what happens judging by their impressive haul of gold, silver and bronze medals in the Doc Rasbeck Relays in Irvington earlier this month.

The leading Rams

The Taylor-led Rams and Lady Rams ran away with two gold medals, four silver medals and five bronze in the win, place and show top three Rasbeck categories while competing against such top teams as Greeley, Lakeland/Panas, Mamaroneck, Ossining and Yorktown on a recent Saturday (5/13).

Taylor teamed up with Payton Kuhn to win the combined long jump relay with Taylor leaping 21:02 and Kuhn jumping 19:04. They came back to win a silver in the 4x100-meter relay hitting 46.42 with John Delcid and Marc Adens Dorsainvil running the third and fourth legs. The same quartet also took a silver medal in the 4x200-meter relay. Taylor, Kuhn, Delcid and Santiago Marquez took home a bronze in the sprint medley relay running 200, 100, 100 and 400 meters in that respective order. And Marquez, the freshman phenom import from Venezuela, ran another grueling leg, this time 800 meters (the metric equivalent of a half mile) on the leadoff leg of the bronze medal winning 4x800-meter relay that hit the finish line in 9:30 with Jonathan Abraham, Irvin Rodriguez and Alejandro Salinas running the other relay legs. Juan Mejia and Arturo Orozco finished the long distance 3,200-meter team race within a second of one another respectively covering the metric equivalent of a two-mile run in 12:32.56 and 12:33.31.

Head coach Nick Mancuso’s Rams also looked good in field events like the javelin with ex-football players John Pauletti and Nathan Provencer scoring a third place bronze finish with throws of 69:03 and 60:01 respectively.

Lady Rams head coach Danny Alvarado’s team also had themselves quite a day at the Rasbeck.

The leading ladies

Juliana Castillo and Karen Pasato, for example, won the long jump relay with gold medal-winning PRs (personal records) with leaps of 15:04 and 13:01 respectively. Chenoa and Chantal Marquez, Santiago's big sisters, toppled the second place silver medal in the 3,200-meter relay, each covering the metric equivalent of two miles with Chenoa clocking 13:34.62 while Chantal hit 15:06.92, both showing the powerful strides that made them (and Santiago) outstanding triathlon performers in their home country.

The Lady Rams also raced to a silver medal-winning second place performance in the 4x100-meter relay running with a quartet that included Mia Pagnotta, Casey Schultz, Kimberly Flores and Liz Elle Cruz crossing the finish line in 46:42. Cruz, Pagnotta and Schultz teamed up with Alexandra Cruz running anchor to take a bronze in the sprint medley relay in a time of 2:02,84. And cheerleader Mayelin Gonzalez ran the leadoff leg on the bronze medal-winning, third place finishing 4x200-meter relay with Schultz, Flores and Liz Cruz running the other relay legs. They crossed the finish line in 1:54.88.