St. Anthony's Alexya Platt wins 400 meters, helps Friars to CHSAA Intersectional girls track and field team championship

After getting off to a slow start on Saturday on Randall’s Island, St. Anthony’s girls track and field picked up the pace to win the team title at the CHSAA Intersectional Championships at Icahn Stadium.

Senior sprinter Alexya Platt broke the ice on the track for the Friars, as the school did not win a race through the first four hours of the event. The seeding chart suggested that slump would continue, as Platt was only the fifth seed coming into the 400 meters.

However, once the starting pistol fired, the projections stopped mattering.

Platt closed out strong to finish in a personal-best 56.48 seconds, narrowly beating Bishop Loughlin’s Tomi Olusanya. Platt herself did not see the win coming.

“I didn’t expect it because I haven’t even ran 58 seconds since last season,” Platt said. “It feels pretty good, especially since I worked so hard in those last 100 [meters].”

Platt’s win awarded St. Anthony’s six points on a day when it won by five. The Friars finished with 57 points to St. Joseph by the Sea’s 52. Platt took pride in helping her squad reach the top spot.

“It definitely continues on our legacy,” Platt said. “We’ve been winning for a couple of years in a row now, and doing what the past seniors have done for us, it’s definitely nice to know that I’m helping out my team and my team is also continuing my legacy.”

By taking the top spot, Platt qualified for the state championship meet, scheduled for June 7-8 at Cicero-North Syracuse High School. After entering the race not knowing if she could win it, she has some extra confidence on her side going into states.

“Now I know I can actually do that, so I’m going to keep working and hopefully [get a personal best] for states,” Platt said.

The Friars compiled enough points with some top-five finishes in other races and field events to keep themselves alive in the team championship sweepstakes. Once they got to the relays, they took the top spot and never looked back. They repeated as intersectional champions.

St. Anthony’s made a lot of noise in the 4  x  800 relay with a quartet of juniors: Olivia Czoch, Elizabeth Guilfoyle, Reilly McKinley and Riley Griffith. The four combined to win the relay in 10 minutes, 2.01 seconds, which was 9.77 seconds faster than second-place Notre Dame School of Manhattan.

In the 4  x  100 relay, junior Amelia DeJoie, Platt and freshman Gianna Bowman all kept up with the pack before handing it to star sprinter Camryn Daley, who took care of the rest. Daley dusted the competition over the final 100 meters to help St. Anthony’s finish in 48.53 seconds, securing the team another title and sending the relay unit to the state championships.

St. Anthony’s coach Oliver St. Aude was glad to see his relay teams get over the hump.

“We’ve been working on these relays pretty much the whole year,” St. Aude said. “Indoors, we got nipped at the line by Notre Dame, so we just had that in the back of our minds. The girls did a [heck] of a job. I’m so proud of them. They all kept their composure and stuck to the game plan.”

St. Aude gushed over the resilience his athletes showed him during the meet and throughout the year.

“This was a long year; we had a lot of ups and downs,” St. Aude said. “That was indicative [in] the first part of the meet, where we had a couple of mistakes and letdowns, but the team didn’t really give up. We just kept fighting. I’ve got to give it to these girls. The hard work paid off, and that’s just a testament to them. I couldn’t be any prouder of the team today.”

Elsewhere, St. John the Baptist owned the 100-meter hurdles with junior Madison Guerrera and senior Madison Erb. Guerrera set a personal best, finishing in 14.48 seconds to win. Erb finished second behind her with a personal-best 16.01.

Guerrera was in disbelief after becoming the intersectional champion.

“It doesn’t feel real,” Guerrera said. “It feels great because we always train together, so it feels good to both come out on top.”