Freshman and Sophomore City Championship Preview

The underclassmen will take center stage at Van Cortlandt this weekend at the PSAL Freshman and Sophomore City Championships. Earlier this month these championships were held for each borough, but now everyone will come together to crown a city champion for each grade.

The Freshman championship is always interesting because 95% of these freshmen have only been running for 2 months. It’s really just a good indicator of which schools have gotten the most talent infused into their programs. Not surprisingly, when we looked back, we noticed an obvious pattern of which schools tend to get this talent year in and year out.

The Sophomore championship tends to lend itself to the same conclusion, except in some cases, you can see how some programs are coaching up their freshmen into faster sophomores.

In some cases, certain schools have more Sophomore trophies than Freshmen trophies. In other cases, it’s vice versa.

BOYS

FROSH BOYS	1ST	2ND	3RD		SOPH BOYS	1ST	2ND	3RD
					2014	Curtis	Brooklyn Tech	Bronx Science
2014	Bronx Science	Tottenville	HSMSE	➡️	2015	MSIT	Tottenville	HSMSE
2015	Brooklyn Tech	MSIT	Francis Lewis	➡️	2016	Brooklyn Tech	RKA	MSIT
2016	Brooklyn Tech	Bronx Science	Millennium	➡️	2017	Bronx Science	Susan Wagner	Brooklyn Tech
2017	Bronx Science	HSMSE	Curtis	➡️	2018	Curtis	MSIT	Francis Lewis
2018	Bronx Science	Beacon	Brooklyn Tech	➡️	2019	Bronx Science	Brooklyn Tech	Beacon
2019	Brooklyn Tech	Millennium	RKA	➡️	2020
2020				➡️	2021	Brooklyn Tech	Hunter	HSMSE
2021	Brooklyn Tech	Bronx Science	Hunter	➡️	2022	Stuyvesant	Bronx Science	MSIT
2022	Brooklyn Tech	HSMSE	MSIT	➡️	2023	Brooklyn Tech	MSIT	LaGuardia
2023	Brooklyn Tech	HSMSE	Bronx Science	➡️	2024	Bronx Science	Brooklyn Tech	MSIT
2024	Brooklyn Tech	Bronx Science	HSMSE	➡️	2025

Boys	Frosh Top 3	Soph Top 3
Brooklyn Tech	8	7
Bronx Science	7	5
HSMSE	5	2
MSIT	2	6
Millennium	2	0
Tottenville	1	1
Beacon	1	1
Hunter	1	1
RKA	1	1
Curtis	1	2
Francis Lewis	1	1
Stuyvesant	0	1
LaGuardia	0	1
Susan Wagner	0	1

The success of Brooklyn Tech (3300+ boys enrolled) and Bronx Science (1500+ boys) really isn’t a surprise. The success of HSMSE with only 350+ boys enrolled is a credit to the program that has been built by Coach Henning. It might come as a surprise to some to learn that large programs like Stuyvesant and Susan Wagner haven’t finished in the top three at freshman championships since before 2014.

On the sophomore side, Coach Crabbe is really coaching them up from freshman year to sophomore year, with MSIT having 6 podium finishes in the Sophomore race since 2014, while only having 2 podium finishes at the Freshmen level.

GIRLS

FROSH GIRLS	1ST	2ND	3RD		SOPH GIRLS	1ST	2ND	3RD
					2014	MSIT	Brooklyn Tech	Stuyvesant
2014	Bronx Science	Brooklyn Tech	MSIT	➡️	2015	Stuyvesant	Bronx Science	MSIT
2015	Bronx Science	YWLS	Brooklyn Tech	➡️	2016	Stuyvesant	Brooklyn Tech	Townsend Harris
2016	Brooklyn Tech	Medgar Evers	Townsend Harris	➡️	2017	Susan Wagner	Brooklyn Tech	Bronx Science
2017	Hunter	Millennium	Townsend Harris	➡️	2018	Millennium	Francis Lewis	Tottenville
2018	Bronx Science	Paul Robeson	HSMSE	➡️	2019	Brooklyn Tech	Benjamin Cardozo	Millennium
2019	Stuyvesant	Brooklyn Tech	Curtis	➡️	2020
2020				➡️	2021	Beacon	Stuyvesant	Tottenville
2021	Brooklyn Tech	Hunter	Benjamin Cardozo	➡️	2022	Stuyvesant	Brooklyn Tech	HSMSE
2022	James Madison	Bronx Science	Stuyvesant	➡️	2023	Bronx Science	LaGuardia	Stuyvesant
2023	LaGuardia	Stuyvesant	Townsend Harris	➡️	2024	Brooklyn Tech	Townsend Harris	Bronx Science
2024	Susan Wagner	Brooklyn Tech	Stuyvesant	➡️	2025

Girls	Frosh Top 3	Soph Top 3
Brooklyn Tech	6	6
Bronx Science	4	4
Stuyvesant	4	6
Townsend Harris	3	2
Hunter	2	0
James Madison	1	0
LaGuardia	1	1
Young Women's	1	0
Medgar Evers	1	0
Millennium (JJC)	1	2
Paul Robeson	1	0
MSIT	1	2
HSMSE	1	1
Curtis	1	0
Benjamin Cardozo	1	1
Francis Lewis	0	1
Tottenville	0	2
Beacon	0	1
Susan Wagner	1	1

Again, with by far the most girls enrolled (2500+) in the city the success of Brooklyn Tech is no surprise. LaGuardia’s appearance on the leaderboards in recent years has foretold what we are seeing this season.

Frosh Girls Preview

We’ve seen fewer Fast Freshmen™ this year, than last. Maeve Heck of Tottenville is a huge favorite here. It’s her 7^th year of competitive running, so it’s not a huge surprise. Beacon’s freshmen have dominated all season long and are pretty big favorites. Brooklyn Tech is another constant here and the Hunter girls finished a competitive 2^nd in the Manhattan freshman borough championships.

Ten Frosh Girls to Watch:

Maeve Heck (Tottenville)

June Grunden (LaGuardia)

Amelia Almond (Beacon)

Makayla McKenzie (DeWitt Clinton)

Anneliese Evans (Brooklyn Tech)

Eliam Brody (Stuyvesant)

Alyona Riley (Hunter)

Vesper Hume (Eleanor Roosevelt)

Natalie Lisman (Beacon)

Mayte Vidal Flores (Brooklyn Tech)

Sophomore Girls Preview

The Susan Wagner sophomores haven’t been as prolific as they were as freshmen, but are still the favorites. Brooklyn Tech and Stuyvesant are probably the teams most equipped to pass them by if they slip. The Townsend Harris girls usually finish near the top as well and these days you can’t rule out LaGuardia. Matilda Quinn of John Jay Campus has been consistently the fastest sophomore this season.

Ten Sophomore Girls to Watch:

Evelyn Craig (Brooklyn Tech)

Matilda Quinn (John Jay Campus)

Ilsa Gitt (Beacon)

Addison Ireland (RKA)

Lily Rustin (RKA)

Amanda Lee (Stuyvesant)

Sigrid Lussier (LaGuardia)

River Duerr (LaGuardia)

Cameron Gray (Hunter)

Kylie Chan (Bard)

Frosh Boys Preview

Like most years, Brooklyn Tech will battle Bronx Science and HSMSE for the title. Brooklyn Tech hasn’t lost this race since 2018. The Stuyvesant boys won both the Group Run and Marty Lewis, so they should be in contention here as well. Tristan Acevedo of Susan Wagner smashed the PSAL record early in the season and won’t have much competition.

Ten Frosh Boys to Watch:

Tristan Acevedo (Susan Wagner)

Miles Dutra (Bronx Science)

Joseph Manzo (John Jay Campus)

Leo Brody (Bard)

Alexander Riley (JFK Campus)

Solomon Cohen (LaGuardia)

Gregory Ipeirotis (HSMSE)

Evan Choi (Stuyvesant)

Henry Todd (Brooklyn Tech)

William Berger (Brooklyn Tech)

Sophomore Boys Preview:

It’s tough to predict that the winner won’t be Bronx Science or Brooklyn Tech. John Jay Campus, Stuyvesant, HSMSE, and MSIT will also battle for the podium. This is also a tough individual race to predict. Christopher Thom of Bronx Science and Marco Arrojo of Lab Museum have been the fastest so far this season.

Ten Sophomore Boys to Watch:

Marco Arrojo (Lab Museum)

Alexander Draves (Stuyvesant)

Lucien Jaccon (Hunter)

Denzel Reyes (HS for Construction)

Henry Bissell (John Jay Campus)

Sebastian Leyva (HSMSE)

Jaisimha Dattatreyan (Lab Museum)

Christopher Thom (Bronx Science)

Aldo Hilpert-Navas (Bronx Science)

Scott Kelly (MSIT)