Queens Girls
The Queens girls have certainly been more competitive than their male counterparts this century, winning 4 City Championships thus far. From 2014 to 2018, Benjamin Cardozo won three titles, but the days of club kids using phony Queens addresses to attend Cardozo seem to be over. This decade, the Townsend Harris girls have been the dominant program in Queens, even qualifying for the Federation meet in 2022. The only other Queens girls program to finish in the Top 10 at City Championships has been Bayside. Queens has at least six schools with more than 1,000 girls, so it is a bit surprising that the Queens schools haven’t had more success.
Borough Champions
2021 - Townsend Harris
2022 - Townsend Harris
2023 - Townsend Harris
2024 - Townsend Harris
2025 - Townsend Harris
Individual Champions
2021 - Nora Gatanas - Francis Lewis - 22:23
2022 - Lelaina Madrazo - Townsend Harris - 23:24
2023 - Margaret Mumford - Forest Hills - 21:50
2024 - Christina Sakellis - Bayside - 21:25
2025 - Natalia Piszczatowski - Townsend Harris - 21:21
Top Ten Finishes at City Championship
9. Christina Sakellis - Bayside (2024)
The PSAL website lists 29 girls programs on the PSAL’s website. We’ll rank their performance since the Pandemic in reverse order.
18. (TIED)
Beach Channel Educational Campus
Grover Cleveland High School
Energy Tech High School
Information Technology High School
Jamaica High School
John Bowne High School
Long Island City High School
High School for Law Enforcement
Newtown High School
Queens Gateway to Health Sciences
Robert F. Kennedy High School
William C. Bryant High School
None of these programs have competed in the Queens Borough Championships in the 2020s.
17. Hillcrest High School
Hillcrest has appeared at one Borough Championship this decade, finishing last in 2025. Their fastest time comes from Keira Mireau, who ran 29:30 in 2024.
16. Campus Magnet
The Campus Magnet girls, while always competitive on the track, typically struggle in the Fall, despite having over 1,000 girls to choose from. They’ve competed at the Queens Borough Championship three times this decade, finishing last each time. Their top time has been run by Gairana Waithe, who ran 26:32 in 2024.
15. Queens High School of Teaching
QHST had made one appearance at Queens Borough Championships this decade and finished 10th of 11 teams in 2021. It doesn’t seem as if they’ve fielded a team since then. Tomoya Passley ran 27:14 for them that year.
14. Thomas Edison High School
Edison appears once this decade in the Borough results. They finished 9th in 2023. That year Yuanxin Yin ran 29:12. Last season they only had two girls on their PSAL roster despite having over 800 girls in the school.
13. High School for Arts and Business
High School for Arts and Business has competed at three of the five Queens Borough Championships this decade. Their best finish was 9th in 2024. Last season, Mahlah Li ran 26:11 to set their decade-best time.
12. Young Women’s Leadership School
YWLA has competed in every borough championship this decade. This is another program that is more competitive on the track, but they did have one of the top runners in PSAL history in the 2010s. They haven’t found that success yet this decade, however. Their top runner has been Kasana Jack, who ran 25:39 last Fall. Their best finish at Boroughs has been 7th, in both 2023 and 2024.
11. Academy of American Studies
The Academy of American Studies girls haven’t yet been blessed with the all-access luck that their boys have been. They’ve competed twice at Borough Championships this decade, with a top finish of 8th in 2022. Their top runner this decade was Estrell Amarilla, who ran 27:40 at VCP in 2022.
10. High School for Construction
The Construction girls haven’t had the success that their boys program has, finishing no higher than 7th in their four Boroughs appearances this decade. Their top runner this decade is Zaira Lopez Reza, who ran 25:33 in 2021.
9. Maspeth High School
Maspeth has competed in three of the five Queens Borough Championships this decade, with a top finish of 7th last Fall. Their top runner last fall was Abigail Morales, who ran 24:23 to finish 17th at the Borough Championship. Their team has grown since 2023 and they are trending upward in Queens.
8. Queens High School Complex
They have competed in four of the five Borough Championships this decade, with two 5th place and two 8th place finishes. Last year’s 5th place team had zero seniors, so this could be the start of promising things in Queens. Their top runner this decade has been Adalia Romero, who ran 24:22 in 2024.
7. Metropolitan Campus
They didn’t run in 2021, but since showing up in 2022, the Metro Campus girls have not finished worse than 6th at Boroughs, with a top finish of 4th last season. While they are trending upward, they do lost their top runner of the decade, Isabela Pintado, to graduation. She ran 22:45 in 2025.
6. Benjamin Cardozo High School
Cardozo won three City Championships in the 2010s and had a few of the fastest girls in league history, but the Judges have yet to qualify for the City Championship this decade. The Pandemic brought a coaching change and an end to club distance runners showing up on their doorstep. Their best Borough finish this decade is 5th place, which they’ve done three times. Their fastest time this decade barely cracks the top 25 on the all-time Cardozo list. That belongs to Mandy Habashi, who ran 22:39 in 2021.
5. The Scholars Academy
The Scholars Academy started the decade on a high note, with two consecutive 4th place finishes in the Queens Borough Championship, even qualifying for the City Championship in 2022, placing 19th. It’s been downhill since then, and they did not even compete in the 2025 Borough Championship. With 600 girls, and a diverse population, and a young team, we could see them rise back toward the top of Queens. Their top runner of the decade was Summer Falkowski, who ran 24:59 in 2022.
4. Forest Hills High School
The girls from Forest Hills have finished 2nd in Queens 3 times and qualified for the City Championship each of those three years, with a best finish of 12th in 2022. The last two seasons have seen the program fall off, failing to qualify for Cities each year and finishing a distant 8th in Queens. Their top runner of the decade is Margaret Mumford, who ran 21:50 in 2023. With over 1,700 girls in the school, it shouldn’t take long for Forest Hills to climb back to the top of the Borough.
3. Francis Lewis High School
The girls from Francis Lewis came oh so close to dethroning Townsend Harris in 2025, losing the Borough Championship in a 6th-man tiebreaker. It was their best finish of the decade and would be their 4th time qualifying for the City Championship. They would go on to finish 11th at Cities, their best of the decade.
Francis Lewis high school has more than 2,200 girls, so it’s likely this run of success will continue. This decade, their top runner has been Daphne Lin, who ran 21:36 in 2025. They ran Cities without her and certainly would have finished inside the top ten had she competed.
2. Bayside High School
Bayside was able to align enough talent to finish 6th in the City in 2024, but still couldn’t manage to dethrone Townsend Harris at Boroughs (even though they beat them at Cities). Most impressive about their 6th place finish is that a team made up mostly of those same runners had finished 14th the prior season. The top runner on that 2024 team was Christina Sakellis, who ran 20:53 to finish in the top ten at Cities, the only Queens girl to do so this decade. Like most of these Queens schools, they have a large population, so finding more talent shouldn’t be too difficult.
1. Townsend Harris High School
Only Bronx Science and Brooklyn Tech have dominated a borough like the Townsend Harris girls have this decade. However, the population of those schools dwarf the population of every other school they compete against. Townsend Harris does have nearly 800 girls to choose from, but there are at least six Queens schools that have over 1,000 girls. They haven’t lost a Borough Championship this decade and have finished as high as 4th at Cities (2022), and haven’t finished lower than 11th. Natalia Piszczatowski has their fastest time this decade, running 21:21 in 2025. As a freshman, she didn’t even break 25 minutes. In fact, Townsend Harris has had zero Fast Freshmen™ this decade, but has managed to develop the talent to maintain this run of dominance in Queens.
The Queens GIrls All Half-Decade Team
Esther Ramos (Forest Hills)
Fiona Loy Chan (Townsend Harris)
Daphne Lin (Francis Lewis)
Jessica Ryan (Bayside)
Caitlyn Medina (Forest Hills)
Lelaina Madrazo (Townsend Harris)
Nora Gatanas (Francis Lewis)
Margaret Mumford (Forest Hills)
Natalia Piszczatowski (Townsend Harris)
Christina Sakellis (Bayside)
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