Eric Keppeler '85
Sports Writer
The St. Joe’s track and field team had a lot of depth heading into last weekend’s All-Catholic championship at St. Francis High School – and it helped the Marauders, to be sure, but it wasn’t quite enough to put them over the top.
“Not enough first place finishes,” said St. Joe’s track coach Dave Rozak, whose team finished third behind the host Red Raiders and Bishop Timon. “We hammered the middle. We had a lot of twos, threes and fours – which is great, but not enough to win. Overall, it showed that there was a little bit more equality in the conference, and a lot more athletes than in the past.”
For the past decade or so, the All-Catholics have been a three-horse race between this year’s top finishers, with the rest pretty far behind.
That wasn’t the case this year as some of the smaller schools like St. Mary’s and Cardinal O’Hara each had one or two standouts that took first place in their individual events and narrowed the overall scores significantly.
“I think what the All-Catholics showed us was that the conference as a whole is a little bit better,” Rozak said. “There were guys from other schools who took some top points. It showed who we were, because we were losing to seniors – whereas everybody that scored for us at All-Catholics is coming back next year.”
He may not have gotten the team result he hoped for, but Rozak is still leading 21 individual qualifiers to Icahn Stadium in Manhattan this weekend for the Catholic High School Athletic Association state championships.
Among those heading downstate are: 200 – Camryn Chinn, Jayovanni Ostrander, Jayson Wagstaff; 400 – Jaxson Addeah, Braun Borgese; 800 – Luke Finnerty, Oliver Scott; 1600 – Jackson Famiglietti, Weston Peirick, Anthony Scarozza; 400H – Dylan Forant; 3000 steeplechase – Peirick; 4×100 Relay – Ostrander, James Johnson, Wagstaff, Davion Becker, Chinn; 4×400 Relay – Borgese, Forant, Jonathan Becker, Addeah, Finnerty; long jump – Davion Becker, Johnson; triple jump – Jonathan Becker; shot put – Max Dispenza, Payton Keighron, Dylan Stanton; discus – Josiah Brown, Keighron, Aidan McGuire.
Rozak wouldn’t call this a rebuilding year because the results were still solid – but the team will only lose seven seniors on the 61-man roster to graduation.
All the others are expected to return, and many of them will benefit from the experience of going to this year’s state meet.
“It helps to get out there and see what the really fast guys look like,” Rozak said. “You get stuck in your Western New York bubble, thinking you’re doing really well – but then you get outside a little bit and see where you really stand. It’s good to see that level of competition and it’s good to see what you have to develop into in order to be that elite guy.”
The athletes will have a chance to advance to the Federation Championships on June 12-13 at Webster-Schroeder High School in Rochester – either by posting a top finish or hitting a national qualifying time.