By Ashley Pavlakis
It’s too cold to run outside, but the indoor track at Suffolk Community College brought the heat as the Eastport-South Manor (ESM) Jr./Sr. boys varsity track team secured the League III championship title last month.
The Sharks are led by Brian Methven, a twenty-first-year head coach of the varsity track team. In December, Methven was awarded coach of the year honors. He is joined by assistant coach John DiMarco. The ESM Sharks are members of the New York State Public High School Athletic Association (NYSPHSAA) and compete in League III.
“Indoor track there is no [season] record, you have a league championship against the particular league you’re in, which was league III for us. What they do is they take the league champion out of one big meet, so you go against all the teams in your league. We won the league championship on January 17, and we won the County Championship on Saturday,” said Methven.
Having won two titles over the past few weeks, the Sharks could seek another if they have athletes who qualify for states.
“After that [counties] they have a state qualifying meet which is really for individuals to go to the state meet. In track and field, there is no real team that travels to the state meet, it’s more individual based for Long Island,” said Methven.
We talk about depth so often in sports, but it’s a major success component for any sports team. The Sharks are no different, and Methven could attest to that fact.
“Honestly, we’re spread out really well, so we have a lot of strengths. We have distance runners, we have a good sprinter, and we have very good high jumpers. In order to win and be successful you definitely have to have it spread out a little bit. I can’t say we’re stronger than one thing than others, but we’re spread out really well,” said Methven.
“The seniors are the reason why we won; they scored the most points. We had three seniors on our team that scored a combination of fifty points. Justin Albanese is a distance runner and he’s one of the best distance runners in the county he won his 1,000-meter race. Jaiden Campbell, who is a high jumper, came in second and jumped 6’2” and also came in second in the hurdles. We have Riley Gimpbell who came in second in the 55-meter dash and came in fourth in the high jump. Between those three that was obviously a huge component to our success,” said Methven.
Methven spoke about roster size and how in track it starts with a large group but eventually dwindles down to roughly eighteen to twenty-two kids who have qualified for the meets and events they compete in. The select group is the ones who are in it for the long hall as the season gets to league, county, and maybe even states.
“In the championship meets it really shows up in depth. Those are the teams that usually are successful,” Methven told The Messenger of his versatile squad.
