Jack Faldetta paces Eastport-South Manor to Suffolk Class B boys track team title
Jack Faldetta, Eastport-South Manor, runs in the 100 meter dash at the Suffolk track and field championships at Kings Park on May 25, 2023. Credit: NEIL MILLER
The track and field postseason keeps Jack Faldetta on his toes.
The Eastport-South Manor senior sprinter scores his points by being quick — quick on the start, and quicker toward the finish. His toes, besides the obvious idiomatic connection, have a lot to do with this. When he’s on them, he’s happy. When he’s not, not so much.
Faldetta’s toes were in the right spot during the finals of the 100 meters at the Suffolk Class B championships Thursday at Kings Park High School, taking him to a 10.53-second finish. He later won the 200 in 21.74.
“I got on my toes, felt a lot faster, got out of the blocks faster,” Faldetta said of his 100 finals run. “[Teammate Lucas Flore] was with me in the middle, but I stuck it out through endurance.”
Faldetta ran the 100 trials in 10.73, second to Flore’s 10.71. The problem was easily diagnosed, Faldetta was on his heels.
“I came out cold. It was not a good race,” Faldetta said of the trials. “It’s all just mental. Mentally, you have to be on your toes. You have to flex the calves and push ... On your toes, you project forward.”
Faldetta and Flore, along with Aidan Murfitt and Riley Gimpel, won the 4 x 100 relay in 43.49 seconds.
The group, in part, led Eastport-South Manor to a team championship with 115 points. Sean O’Neill added winner points in the 3,000 steeplechase with a 9:50.76 finish. The team of O’Neill, Luke Pfeiffer, Cooper Nedvin and Paul Zorn won the 4 x 800 relay in 8:32.67.
Elsewhere, Amityville’s Aaron Beale won the 400 hurdles in 1:00.38, barely topping teammate Stanley Louis, who was second out of the first heat in 1:00.63. In Beale’s heat, the final of the event, a late move carried the Amityville senior home. Beale said he noticed Half Hollow Hills West’s Tyler Walker creeping away, ever so slightly, with 200 meters left.
“I feel like if I didn’t break away there, it would have been too close of a race,” Beale said. “So I just decided to start running there to get a head start. Once he started running away from me, I said, ‘Yeah, I can’t let this happen.’”
On the girls side, Sayville won the team title with 124 points. Mullane Baumiller won the 3,000 in 10:17.75 and Olivia Gerena won the 1,500 walk in 7:51.04. In the field, Summer O’Brien threw 94 feet, 5 inches to win the discus.
Islip freshman Imani Hood won the 100 in 12.37 and the 200 in 25.55.
