Port Chester T&F heads into Pearl River Relays with a new stick passing approach built on trust
April 3, 2024 at 10:50 p.m.
The Port Chester Track & Field team heads into the prestigious Pearl River Relays for the first time Saturday (4/6) at 10 a.m. and aims to stick it to them—the relay stick, that is.
They aim to do the same thing when they travel to the even more prestigious Penn Relays for the first time since 2013 with that mega-national track extravaganza running Thursday through Saturday, Apr. 25-27 in a circus-like three ring atmosphere—running, jumping and throwing—traditionally run on the last weekend in April at the University of Pennsylvania.
'Out of comfort zone'
"I'm trying to shake the team out of its comfort level," new Rams head T&F head coach Greg Domestico said at one of his unconventional practices on the high school track earlier this week.
Domestico, a former Rams football, wrestling and T&F great who coached those three sports at Port Chester High School around a decade ago, has returned to his alma mater as a mentor with a mission based on lessons learned while coaching the sport at schools ranging from Greenwich to Sacred Heart.
"I call it making the team comfortably uncomfortable by shaking up the way they are used to things being done—taking them out of their comfort zone, so to speak," he said.
New look & venues
That includes taking them to compete at racing venues they aren't used to and competing in different ways that push the envelope beyond their accustomed style, from the way they start to the way they run the turns to the way they take the relay stick on handoffs.
It all comes down to a matter of technique, style, and change of mindset from playing things safe to going for broke, a switch from the no risk, no gain approach to risking failure by reaching for win-win situations with no guarantee beyond thinking you can achieve that kind of success through practice.
That change of philosophy comes down to timing and trust in themselves and their coaches.
And that new Domestico doctrine was encapsulated in the way the team was working on relay running by changing the way they exchanged the batons, caught the stick in track parlance.
New passing approach
If that doesn't sound like much, think again because a slick stick handoff between runners can translate into as much as an eight-tenths of a second gain in time, an eternity in relay races that can be won by tenths of a second.
That time gain can be the difference between winning and losing.
And even world-class athletes, including the U.S. Olympic sprint relay team, can have trouble getting the stick handoff down pat.
That explains why Domestico was having his potentially best sprint relay runners like Mark Dorsainvil, John Delcid, Anderson Duran, Jaycee Rodriguez, Mia Pagnotta, Casey Schultz, Liz Cruz and Juliana Castillo practice risk-taking stick passing over and over in simulated 4x100-meter sprint races like the ones they may be running at Pearl River and Penn.
Where does the risk factor come in?
Risk and reward factor
Basically, the risk comes from running blind, with your back to the oncoming runner, taking off at full speed, trusting that the runner will get the stick into your hand before you run out of the designated passing zone, an overstep that means disqualifying, the dreaded DNF (Did Not Finish).
That's where the elements of trust and timing come in.
Because as the relay runner edges into the inside of his designated lane, he or she (say here, for example, sprinters like Dorsainvil or Pagnotta) looks briefly over his or her shoulder to see where their teammate (Delcid or Schultz) is coming off the turn in the track, turns into running position and takes off in an all out sprint when the runner is getting close (approximately five yards away). As they run full speed ahead, they are waiting for that runner to shout a code word ("Blue" in this instance) before stretching the left hand back for the first time to take the baton that is hopefully waiting to be grasped.
When that maneuver is executed without running out of the designated passing zone, it is a thing of beauty repeated on the other designated legs (Duran and Rodriguez for the Rams and Castillo and Liz Cruz for the Lady Rams).
But if you run out of the zone, it means disqualification.
No risk, no gain mindset
That's where the no risk, no gain mindset and the question of trust come in. And that's why there were a lot of practice stick passing repetitions, progress not perfection, during a grueling practice Monday (4/1) with no fooling around on the high school track,
There are, of course, other less risky ways of taking a relay stick handoff, like simply standing in the lane, turning towards the incoming runner with your hand outstretched and slowly taking off as the stick is handed off. Or jogging up and down, waiting for the runner to get near before running at three-quarters speed with your left hand outstretched waiting for the baton to be placed inside of it.
But the new look no look Rams and Lady Rams are practicing the Domestico technique stressing form and trust all around the track, from assistant coach Nick Mancuso working with runners like Allegra Burke, Ramaul Morgan Jr. and Nick Wolff sprinting the turns with regular rest intervals to volunteer distance running coach Hank Birdsall talking pace with aces like Santiago and Chenoa Marquez, the Cruz sisters (Alexandra and Liz), Alexa Aguiriano, Jonathan Abraham and Christopher Zamora, all potential candidates for the 4x400 and 4x800-meter relays.
But with the local weather forecast as of Tuesday (4/2) predicting a three-day storm of snow, sleet, thunder, rain and chill for the Hudson Valley, it doesn't look as though there will be time for time trials so Domestico and his assistants can pick their best Rams and Lady Rams sprint and distance relay teams. So they will have to go by what they have seen in recent practices. And that includes the stick passing. All of which should make the upcoming Pearl River and Penn Relays interesting. Especially with the run fast and carry a big stick relay running approach.
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