Verona High School boys track won the Liberty Division at the SEC championships on Monday and the VHS girls finished second with medals and record-breaking times all around.
Isaac Skrivanic repeated as Liberty shot-put champion with a powerful throw of 47-00.75 (second place was only 40-06.50), while David Navarro took first place in the 1600 with a time of 4:54.01 and Owen Fogarty vaulted 12-06.00 to the top in pole vault.
The boys 4×400 team of Navarro, Bryan McKeen, Aidan Murphy and Vincent Hogan broke the 2008 indoor 4×400 school record (3:40.19) by running a 3:39.46. The race had extra drama because right before the boys were to run, officials announced that Verona was tied with Newark’s West Side High School for the championship. The members of the Verona team already had two or three races on their legs, but they ran all out and captured first place for VHS.
In addition to aiding the 4×400 win, Murphy broke the 2013 400-meter dash record (53.92) by running a 52.79. He also broke his own 200-meter school record from last year running 23.45. Navarro, meanwhile, had run a 2:10.49 in the 800 meters, good enough for second place.
Among the boys other highlights of the day, Cole Martin placed second in pole vault (10-00.00), and Jake McConnachie and Andrew Hunt took second and third in high jump with a 6-00.00 and a 5-09.00 respectively. In the 3200-meter, Nikhil Parekh took second, Harry Mastrogiannis took third and Sean Carney finished fifth.
The Verona girls winter track team took second place meanwhile in a field of 17 teams at the SEC championships, which were held at the Ocean Breeze Track Complex in Staten Island.
Veronica Valera led off the scoring of the day with a first place 3200m win in 12:46.86 with teammate Lucy Hogan getting fifth in 15:27.74.
Pole vaulters Erin Petrino and Rebecca Katsios took first and second place respectively with 9-00.00 and 7-06.00 performances.
Jenika Ying finished second in the 800m run at 2:33.35, with teammate Olivia Vogel getting fifth at 2:40.
The 1600m run was a memorable race with Valera, Ying and Bridget O’Donnell running away from the field in a tight pack from them start to their photo finishes at 5:55.28, 5:55.61 and 5:56.73.
The girls 4×400 relay took third with a 4:49.03 from Amanda Caldera, Jackie DeVivo, Karen Andre and Olivia Vogel.
Selena Caraballo took sixth in shot put with a throw of 27-04.50 and Caldera has a similar finish in high jump with a 4-03.00 jump.
Arianna Tietjen, Karina Squilanti, Emma Hogan, Juliana Squilanti and Sarah Knoetig made up Verona’s third place sprint medley and fourth place distance medley teams.
