Port Chester T&F team's final dual meet time trials leading up to Penn Relays go off minus a gunman
April 24, 2024 at 10:55 p.m.
The gunman didn't show up, but the whistleblower did.
And that was all it took for the Port Chester Track & Field team to get off and running in their dual meet against White Plains and Lakeland/Panas at the high school last Monday (4/15).
It was the final tune-up that would serve as a time trial to select the Ram and Lady Ram teams going to the prestigious Penn Relays Thursday and Friday (4/25/26) with Port Chester competing in the national meet for the first time since 2013.
The Domestico innovations
And what a colorful running, jumping and throwing carnival the dual meet turned out to be—a fitting local mini- prelude to the three-ring circus that is the Penn Relays.
The dual meet—once a rare occurrence at Port Chester—and the even rarer Penn Relays entry are the latest innovations by new Ram head coach Greg Domestico.
And it almost didn't happen. Because the gunman didn't make it to the meet for starters due to lack of transportation—he couldn't get a cab to Port Chester from upper Westchester.
Take whistle, forget gun
Without the gunman, the meet doesn't start because the shooter traditionally fires the starter pistol that sends the runners off and running before every race, pulling the trigger as the final command that includes the words: "On your mark. Get ready. Get set," with the gun fired on the word "Go" that starts the racers hurtling off from the starting line towards the finish line way off in the distance.
The distances may vary, from 100 to 200 meters in the sprints to 400, 800 or 1600 meters in the middle distance events.
But without the gunman, Domestico and his assistant coach Nick Mancuso had to improvise.
Luckily, the other major official who showed up had a whistle and the whistle substituted for the gun with the official blowing on the whistle instead of pulling the trigger at the start of each race.
Setting the stage
And what races there were, each with its own story, including the lead ups and finishes that saw racers competing like four-legged thoroughbreds, each in their own colorful uniforms, each in their own way, with White Plains sprinters excitedly doing back flips and somersaults on their way to the starting line.
Lakeland/Panas relay runners carefully laid down tape strips to mark where they would take off from on the baton handoffs and Rams and Lady Rams were anxious to strut their stuff while their friends cheered them on from the stands.
It was the rarest of June days, beautiful, crisp, clear and sun-filled during a mid-April that had been so cold, rainy and windy that it seemed as though Mother Nature had forgotten what spring was supposed to be like.
And the student-athletes showed why the play was the thing, not the backdrop, with their performances.
Top Rams & Lady Rams
Here's the way the meet unfolded, event by event, starting with Port Chester's best performers:
*Anderson Duran won the 200 meters in 23:3 and was the Rams’ first finisher in the 100 meters in 11:4 with Ramaul Morgan Jr. and Jaycee Rodriguez right behind him in 11:5.
*Santiago Marquez was first in the 1600 meters, the metric equivalent of the mile, in 5:04.9.
*The 4x800-meter relay finished second with Marquez running the half-mile relay leg and the other three runners—Jonathan Abraham, Arturo Orozco and Alejandro Salinas doing likewise for a cumulative time of 9:15.
*The Lady Rams 4x800-meter relay also finished second with Katherin Espinoza, Camila Ramos, Mayerlin Torres and Chenoa Marquez combining for a time of 12:55.
*Nicholas Wolff won the long jump with a leap of 18:9.05 while Juliana Castillo finished second in that event with a jump of 15:3.
Solid performances
Other top Ram performers included Eduardo Sanchez and Jaycee Rodriguez in the 200 meters with times of 25:5 and 25:7; Christian Montenegro in 57:2 with the other top quarter milers including Jandel Sacramento (59:3), Jeremy Salazar (60), Nicholas Wolff (60:1) and Joseantonio Velasquez (62:2). The 4x100-meter relay hit 47:07 running with a quartet that included John Delcid, Morgan, Rodriguez and Duran while the 4x400-meter team clocked 4:16:3 running with a quartet that included Montenegro, Sanchez, Salazar and Wolff.
The leading ladies
The leading ladies included Castillo and Juliana Martinez in the 100 meters with times of 13:1 and 13:9; the top 200- and 400-meter runners included Liz (Elle) Cruz (27:09 and 65) and Mia Pagnotta (28:5 and 66:5) while the other quarter milers included Kimberly Flores and Alexa Aguiriano (71:39 and 77:7). The leading 1400-meter runners included Chenoa Marquez (6:13) and Katherin Espinoza (7:07). Andrea Barajas hit 29:5 for the 200 meters and Mayerlin Torres ran the 800 meters in 3:12.7. And the swiftest of the swift Lady Ram relay runners included Castillo, Liz Cruz, Pagnotta and Barajas who clocked 57:4 for the 4x100-meter relay while Pagnotta, Aguiriano, Flores and Alexandra Cruz strode through the 4x400-meter relay in 4:44.90.
In the field events, Joseantonio Velazquez long jumped 16:8; Alejandro Velasquez threw the shotput 32 feet and Jordan Orellano, Miguel Valdovinos and Aidyn Richmond hurled the discus 60:09, 57:01 and 40:07. The Lady Rams leading field events performers included Allegra Burke in the long jump (11:10); shot putters and discus throwers Maria Garcia (21:01 and 49:06) and Evelyn Aguilar (18:03 and 48:03) while Lucia Giordano threw the shot (17:10) and Kimberly Maldonado hurled the discus 48:06.
The downbeat note came when two of the team's best sprinters, Casey Schultz and Marc Dorsainvil both ran under wraps because of a calf strain and sore hamstring respectively.
All of these performances gave Domestico, Lady Rams head coach Danny Alvarado and key assistant Rams coach Nick Mancuso a lot to think about besides the missing gunman and the whistleblower before selecting the Port Chester T&F athletes who would compete in the Penn Relays for Port Chester's first appearance there in more than a decade. See the accompanying T&F box for the selections, the fleetest and elitest of the Rams and Lady Rams T&F. The team will come back for a quick encore in the Rye Relays Saturday (4/27) at 10 a.m. And, who knows, maybe the gunman will show up this time.
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