The Inside Track
Sunday May 17, 2009

Sunday May 17, 2009: Please note the change in the schedule for the Boys Suburban Council Varsity Championships which has been moved to Thursday, May 21. It will still be held at Averill Park High School. The other three meets for this week have not changed. The Boys JV Championships will be held on Wednesday, May 20 at Saratoga High School. The Girls SC Varsity Championships will be on Wednesday (May 20) at Colonie High School while the Girls JV Championships are scheduled for Monday, May 18 at Guilderland High School.

The Boys team completed an undefeated (11-0) Suburban Council season with a sweep of the last league meet on Tuesday, May 12th against Saratoga and Mohonasen. Among the first place individual finishers from Shaker were: Alvin Porter (100M), Ebube Abara (200M and 110M Hurdles), Matt Conti (800M), Craig Weiss (1600M), Brendan Dolan (400M Hurdles), Mike Ofosu (TJ), Prince Abban (LJ), Matt Dustin (HJ), Dan Townsend (PV) and Naquan Lewis (SP).

The JV team also completed a very successful league season of their own with another sweep. Among the performances that signal a bright outlook for the next few years were the 1600M performances of three of the 9th grade runners who all ran under 4:45 on Tuesday (Mike Libruk, Christian DeLago and Jon Vallecorsa), while Ian Weykamp continued his assault on the 8th grade class records…this time in the open 400M.

The story of the Frosh/Soph Championships on Thursday at Guilderland was the weather. It was raining throughout the meet until the events were finally stopped at the 400M hurdles because of the conditions and the threat of even worse weather. Before the meet was stopped just past the halfway point, several top performances were completed by Shaker athletes including Nick Shamlian (1st in Frosh LJ), Sterling Green (1st in Frosh TJ, 2nd in LJ and 2nd in 110M Hurdles), Bryan Letourneau (1st in Soph 100M), Kyle Foster (1st in Soph 1600M), Ruben Feinman (1st in Soph LJ), Dave Haller (1st in Soph TJ), Naquan Lewis (1st in Soph SP & 2nd in Discus), and Carlos Mendez (1st in Soph Discus & 2nd in SP) and Brian Gallagher (2nd in Soph LJ and 5th in SP) as he continues his preparation for the pentathlon.

The Shaker Boys team was not scheduled to participate in the Eddy Meet that was held at Union College on Saturday, May 16th. About a handful of runners were entered and had solid performances against a strong field. Ryan Egan finished third in the open 800M with a time of 1:59.0. JQ Chandler was third in the 400M Hurdles, Ebube Abara finished third in the finals of the 200M just ahead of Bryan Letourneau (who had the fastest time in the preliminaries of that race).

The Shaker Girls finished their league meets with a Varsity record of 7-4 after defeating Burnt Hills and Ballston Spa and losing to Guilderland on Monday, May 11. Morgan Wojtusik won the 1500M and Emily Vandenberg won the long jump for Shaker in the four team meet. The Girls team also competed at the Eddy Meet on Saturday. Morgan Wojtusik was the top scorer for Shaker with a second place in the 1500M, while Katie Crodelle was 4th in the triple jump and Molly Nephew finished 6th in the 400M Hurdles.

Congratulations to senior Ebube Abara, who was recently named as the “Shaker Athlete of the Week”. He was the first member of the Boys Track team to win the honor this season and joins early season winner Emily Vandenberg, a 9th grader who has been the only member of the Girls team to win the same honor so far this spring.

As further evidence of the depth and balance of this year’s Boys team, you only need to look at the top relay team performances by schools in Section 2 this season. The Shaker team is at or near the top of the leaderboard in the 4x100M, 4x200M, 4x400M, 4x800M and 4x1600M.