Week Six Recap

This past weekend, most PSAL teams who raced did so at the prestigious Manhattan Invitational. But we’ll start with those who did not.

The Bayside girls won the Fordham Developmental Varsity race on Friday evening, led by the consistently improving trio of Jessica Ryan, Christina Sakellis and Natalie Niselson. The trio finished 3-4-5, running 17:30, 17:38 and 17:48, respectively, for the 4k course.

The MSIT Boys traveled to Saratoga to take on the Burnt Hills Invitational. They finished a very respectable 8th place in the Division IV race. Simon Saffayeh and Preston Kostioukov led the way with 18th and 22nd place finishes, respectively.

The Townsend Harris girls ventured to Sunken Meadow to race in the Suffolk Officials Invitational. Led by sophomore Natalia Piszczatowski’s 25th place finish in 22:05, they finished 8th of 20 teams.

Manhattan Invitational Recap

The PSAL started off the day winning both the individual and team titles in the Freshman Boys A race. Manhattan Center’s Collin Toung won the race and the HSMSE’s freshman dominance rolled on with the team victory.

Bronx Science won the Boys Sophomore A race, led by Eliot Faith’s individual victory. They went 1-3-4-5-6 for an easy 19 point victory.

PSAL runners took 6 of the top 10 spots in the Sophomore Girls A race. Clinton School’s Melia Murphy ran away with the win in a blazing 15:36. Curtis sophomore Riley Tefft also broke 16 minutes, finishing 2nd in 15:53. Hunter sophomore Noa Yirmiyahu ran 16:45 to finish 3rd. Stuyvesant sophomores finished 5-9-10 and probably would have won the team race if they could have fielded a full team.

Brooklyn Tech sophomore Francesca Haidt won the Sophomore Girls B race in a fast 16:40. Her team finished 2nd.

The Stuyvesant boys won the Sophomore Boys C race on a 6th man tiebreaker. They were led by Tyler Horiuchi’s 6th place finish.

Lucian Lipton of HSMSE won the JV Boys E race in 14:54, leading his team to a 4th place finish.

Varsity Races

Naomi Douglas of LaGuardia won the Girls Varsity D race, running 14:56, which was the 7th fastest time of the day. LaGuardia finished 5th in a talented 21-team field, sandwiched between perennial programs Monroe-Woodbury and Saint Anthony’s. The HSMSE girls finished 13th, led by Phoebe Estep’s 37th place finish.

Hunter put two girls on the line in the Eastern States Championship. Ella Cohen finished 26th in 15:37 and Emma Baltrusaitis was 82nd in 17:57.

In the Boys Varsity D race, LaGuardia finished 15th, led by Ezekiel Cohen’s 5th place finish in 13:35. The boys from Bard were 17th, led by Ramsey Hansen’s 14th place finish.

The Boys Varsity E race featured 4 PSAL teams. HSMSE finished 5th, led by Max Berkson’s 27th place finish. The purple team had a spread of only 34 seconds between their 1st and 5th finisher and that is a recipe for success. Further down the standings, the Stuyvesant boys finished 9th, led by Raphael Ramot’s 17th place finish. The Curtis boys finished 12th, led by Randy Nieva’s 12th place finish. Manhattan Center finished 19th.

In the Varsity Girls E race, the Stuyvesant girls finished 2nd running without their 3rd girl. Running without their 2nd and 3rd girls, Brooklyn Tech finished 3rd, only 7 points behind Stuyvesant. Susana Sharp finished 10th for Brooklyn Tech and Emily Li was 13th for Stuyvesant. The girls from Bard finished 17th in the 19 team field.

Bronx Science easily won the Boys Varsity F race, with Ben Berman and Bansi Pande finishing 1st and 2nd. Liam Hernandez was 6th for the Wolverines.

Seven PSAL teams competed in the final girls race of the day. The Bronx Science girls finished 3rd, led by Rossitsa Petrova’s 10th place finish. Beacon finished 8th led by June Selib’s 29th place finish. Francis Lewis finished 11th, led by Daphne Lin in 42nd place. Freshman Matilda Quinn finished 28th to lead John Jay Campus to 13th place.  Riverdale-Kingsbridge Academy finished 16th, with Ofelia Villanueva leading the way with her 37th place finish. Dewitt Clinton superfrosh Aisha Wajid finished 8th in 16:30, leading her team to a 17th place finish. Manhattan Center rounded out the PSAL teams, finishing 21st.

Running shorthanded, Brooklyn Tech took 4th place in the final race of the day, Boys Varsity G. Amos Pres finished 5th and Alexander Jones finished 6th for Tech. Benjamin Cardozo finished 20th.

Next weekend is a pretty quiet weekend with Boroughs in two weeks. The Staten Island teams have their SI Varsity Championships with the Catholic schools. Bronx Science is entered in the Section One Coaches Invite (though not all of their top runners are entered). Francis Lewis and HS for Construction are entered in the NYC XC Carnival at VCP.

TRT PSAL Rankings

Boys

1. Brooklyn Tech – Our gut tells us that Bronx Science is probably a better team right now, but no one has beaten Tech since before the pandemic, so they’re here until they get beat at full strength. Solid 1-2 punch up front, could definitely use some help 3-7.

2. Bronx Science – Arguably the best 1-3 in the league and Berman is probably the favorite to win the individual title. It’s no surprise that a team that can train at Van Cortlandt whenever it pleases is this good, the only question is why they aren’t always up this high.

3. MSIT – A solid challenger for best 1-3 in the league. This is a deep team that could win it all if their 4-5 move up when it counts.

4. HSMSE – A team with no one up front, but the best pack in the league. This past weekend the split between their fastest runner and their 5th fastest runner was 19 seconds. And when you consider that they no longer have the services of their two best freshmen from last year (one transferred to Bronx Science, the other was removed from the active roster) it becomes even more impressive.

5. John Jay Campus – From unranked to Top 5, John Jay had a solid showing at Manhattan this weekend, with a 1-5 spread of just over a minute. Combined with their 3 talented freshmen, this could be a program on the rise.

6. Stuyvesant – Going in the other direction, the Stuyvesant boys were outmatched this weekend at Manhattan. Of their 5 returning runners from last year’s 3rd place team, only one of them has run faster than they did last year. They’ll have to get their act together in the next month if they’d like to go to their 4th straight Federation meet.

7. LaGuardia – Not a very deep team, but Ezekiel Cohen has been getting faster each week, and could find himself in the top 10 at city championships next month.

8. Curtis – a solid two up front, but will need more help from 3-5 in order to move up at Cities.

9. Academy of American Studies (Queens) – see Curtis

10. Bard – see Academy of American Studies (Queens)

Girls

1. Brooklyn Tech – Before this weekend, it could have been said that this group’s problem was a large gap between their 3rd and 4th runners. With the resurgence of Danielle Andrews and the emergence of Tatiana O’Neal, they’re now the definitive favorite heading into championship season. Getting yet another Fast Freshman ™ doesn’t hurt either.

2. LaGuardia – This team will likely have two of the top 5 finishers, including the individual champion. With club runners at 3 and 4, they’ll just need to find a fifth and they could take down Tech.

3. Bronx Science – This was one that the Ghosts definitely missed. We did not see this past weekend’s performance coming. This is a much improved team from last year. Five girls at 17:46 or faster for the 4k this weekend, only Brooklyn Tech had more.

4. Stuyvesant – Like their boys team, the Stuy girls have yet to run as fast as they did last year. Still a dangerous team because of their tight pack, if that pack hits last year’s times, they could jump up these standings in November.

5. Susan Wagner – We haven’t seen a 5k yet from most of what we expect will be their varsity squad, but their 4 freshmen have way more running experience than the typical freshman, so it’s definitely possible this team could surprise some come November.

6. Bayside – A fast and tightly-grouped top 3 have this squad higher than most would have predicted back in August. Their 4 and 5 will need to greatly improve if this team wants to qualify for Feds.

7. Beacon – Yet another season with a Cafcules on their varsity squad, but they aren’t a very deep squad and will be susceptible to a good pack running team at this spot in the standings.

8. HSMSE – Speaking of good pack running teams. Beacon beat them in the merge at Manhattan, but this is a team that could very well finish ahead of Beacon at Boroughs in two weeks.

9. Hunter – It’s been a difficult title defense for the Hawks, as they’ve fielded a full scoring team just once and it’s now mid-October. And Cohen’s reign of dominance looks like it’s under serious threat from Naomi Douglas.

10. Townsend Harris – Ranking them just ahead of Francis Lewis here because of their top 2 runners. The Queens Borough Championship looks like it will be the most competitive.