KINGSTON – On Thursday, May 22, the Ellenville High School Boys' Track and Field Team overcame brutally hot and humid weather and emerged victorious at the MHAL Championship Meet. The team scored 109.5 points and finished on top of the 16 team field. Considering the schools in the league have quite different enrollment numbers, the MHAL has been dominated by bigger schools like Wallkill and perennial track and field powerhouse Onteora. The Blue Devils are now only the fifth team to win the league meet in approximately the last 15 years. Runner up to the Blue Devils was Red Hook High School who finished with 94.5 points.

Senior standouts and fellow co-captains Ryan Valencia and Sam Pozorski led the way for the Blue Devils on the track. Valencia finished in third place in both the 400 meter dash (51.0) and the 800 meter run in which he ran a 2:00.4 time and recorded a new school record in the 800. He then came back and took sixth place in the 200 meter dash with a time of 23.5. Pozorski finished in second place in the 110 meter hurdles with a time of 15.7 and took third in the 400 meter hurdles when he tied the school record with a 58.7 time. Other strong performances on the track for the Blue Devils were freshman Tyler Obryant's third place finish in the 100 meter dash (11.3), and Joe Barrera and Ben Altshuler tying for sixth place in the 110 meter hurdles with a time of 17.2.

In the field events, the Devils were led by junior standout and co-captain AJ Borriello, who took second place in the shot put (47'5") and third place in the discus (138'6"). Sophomore Ben Altshuler took third in the long jump with a personal best leap of 20'7.25" and seventh in the triple jump with another personal best of 40'5". Doug Lewis took fourth in the pole vault with a height of 11' and Frank Casamento took seventh in the shot put (43'4") and eighth in the discus (123'4"). Finally, Matt Rogers finished eighth in the shot put with a throw of 43'3" and pentathletes Emile Reid and John Paulsen finished in second and fourth place respectively for the Blue Devils.

After all the individual events were contested, the Blue Devils entered the relays, which are the final three events on the track, trailing Red Hook by three points. The relay teams were the highlight of the day for the Blue Devils and they racked up 26 points with two second place finishes and a first place finish. In the first relay, the 3200 meter relay team of Doug Lewis, Andrew Platt, Andres Rojas, and Nick Vanderhoff destroyed their own school record by 17 seconds with a time of 8:32.9 seconds and finished second. Next up, the 400 meter relay team of Tomasz Czarnecki, Jose Aldorondo, Sam Pozorski, and Tyler Obryant finished second with a season-best time of 44.5. Finally, the 1600 meter relay team ended the meet with the team's lone first place finish and a new school record of 3:29.9. The 1600 team consisted of Ryan Valencia, Sam Pozorski, Joe Barrera, and Dan Quiceno.

Next up for the Blue Devils is the final team meet of the season, when the boys head back to Dietz on Thursday, May 28, for the Section IX Class B Championship. After this, track and field becomes an individual sport when the boys head to the Section IX State Qualifier Meet the first week of June.

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