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.

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	Millenium	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	Bronx Science	Brooklyn Tech	Stuyvesant
2025	MSIT	Bronx Science	Stuyvesant

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

Frosh Boys Preview

No surprise here, the trend of Bronx Science getting a load of talent continues in 2026. The Stuyvesant boys won the Manhattan Borough pretty handily over perennial Freshman powerhouse HSMSE. With 3,300 boys, you can’t rule out Brooklyn Tech. Like last year, the boys from MSIT didn’t race the VCP freshman course, so they could also contend here again this year. As for the individual champion, it seems like a pretty wide open race. Only one boy has broken nine minutes this year and he currently sits on the inactive roster at John Jay Campus after transferring mid-season. It doesn’t seem like he’ll be eligible to compete.

Ten Frosh Boys to Watch:

Romel Barrett (Bronx Science)

Leonardo Diomede (MSIT)

Luke Ashkar (MSIT)

Borut Junior Vojnic (Manhattan Center)

Miles Albano (Brooklyn Tech)

Chase Clarke (Metropolitan Campus)

Atzin Ramirez Celerio (HS of American Studies)

Max Narcisco-Krutz (The Clinton School)

Peter Finck (Stuyvesant)

Nicolas Gontero (Stuyvesant)

Sophomore Boys Preview:

It’s tough to predict that the winner won’t be MSIT, Bronx Science or Brooklyn Tech. Stuyvesant and HSMSE will also battle for the podium. If he runs, it should be an easy victory for Tristan Acevedo of Susan Wagner.

Ten Sophomore Boys to Watch:

Tristan Acevedo (Susan Wagner)

Abeishan Pakeerathan (MSIT)

Miles Dutra (Bronx Science)

Robert Tarbutton (HS of American Studies)

Ruben Carmi (LaGuardia)

Henry Todd (Brooklyn Tech)

Leo Brody (Bard)

Donald Wheeland (Stuyvesant)

Benjamin Jalkut (Stuyvesant)

Simon Bird (Metropolitan Campus)

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	Susan Wagner	Stuyvesant	Brooklyn Tech
2025	Beacon	Brooklyn Tech	Hunter	➡️

Girls	Frosh Top 3	Soph Top 3
Brooklyn Tech	7	7
Bronx Science	4	4
Stuyvesant	4	7
Townsend Harris	3	2
Hunter	3	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	1	1
Susan Wagner	1	2

Frosh Girls Preview

This year the league is full of Fast Freshmen™ and girls who are on the brink of being Fast Freshmen™, so this should be a fast and competitive race. The girls from Susan Wagner won at Marty Lewis and have a top two that is only outdone by Brooklyn Tech. Sophie Walther of Tech has consistently been the fastest freshman of the group and should win here. Brooklyn Tech has a bit of a drop off after their top two (although not as pronounced over only 1.6 miles). That leaves the Manhattan teams. LaGuardia won the Manhattan borough freshman race, but was very closely followed by Beacon, Stuyvesant and Hunter. Those teams will battle for the podium.

Ten Frosh Girls to Watch:

Sophie Walther (Brooklyn Tech)

Elizabeth Grogan (John Jay Campus)

Genevieve Pantaleo (Susan Wagner)

Lilah Murphy (Brooklyn Tech)

Kenley Miller (Lab Museum)

Naya Gaudissard (LaGuardia)

Kunusasha Medas King (Benjamin Cardozo)

Dylan Stoer (Eleanor Roosevelt)

Antonia Schnell (Susan Wagner)

Cali Ge (Hunter College Campus)

Sophomore Girls Preview

The Beacon girls won as freshmen and are the favorites to pull off the double. The Stuyvesant sophomores all broke 20 minutes at Manhattan and could challenge them. Brooklyn Tech,  Bronx Science, Hunter College Campus will probably battle for third.

Ten Sophomore Girls to Watch:

Maeve Heck (Tottenville)

Cameron Hetherington (HSMSE)

Eliam Brody (Stuyvesant)

Isla Broadbent (Stuyvesant)

Myla Hendrich (Brooklyn Tech)

Natalie Lisman (Beacon)

Penelope Schonfeld (Bronx Science)

Emilia Gerber (Beacon)

Dalia Richlin (Hunter College Campus)

Calista Loo (Stuyvesant)