John Jay and Fox Lane Ready for the Fast Track

The John Jay Indians’ key veterans this track season are seniors Warren Lockwood, Eliot Cowley, Alec Donkin, Don McLoughlin and Jake Musich; juniors Rob Cozza, Matt Kauffman and Sam Reed; and sophomores AJ Goncavles and Nick Vupescu.

“We all work really well together,” Donkin said. "We are a good team. When we are practicing, we motivate each other and keep each other going. With the relays last year we had a rhythm going. We know how everyone else runs. We just have the ability to come together as a team.”

Helping lead the sprinters is Lockwood, who competes in the 100, 200, and 4x100 relay and also does the 400-meter event.

“He [Lockwood] is a good motivator and one of the best sprinters around,” said Donkin, who competes in the 100, 200 and 4x100 relay, in addition to the high jump. “He is someone we look up to. You want to push yourself to be as good as him.”

Senior Will Brady, sophomores Matt Kerschner and Noah Lieboff and freshman Vikram Shah will be the key first-year athletes for the Indians.

Playing a key role in the fortunes of the girls will be senior Emma Wisdom, who runs the mile and the 4x800 relay.

Other veteran runners on the girls side for the Indians are senior Julia Stern, and juniors Hannah Casill, Claire Cirillo, Julia Conrad, Claudia D’Ottillie, Stephanie Riocci and Rachel Sweeney.

Key first-year athletes on the girls squad are senior Laura Allen, junior Lucia Ruccine and freshman Rachel Saloom.

Wisdom said that the John Jay squad is full of athletes that push themselves to be the best they can be.

“We create communities on the track team,” Wisdom said. “For example, kids on the distance all run together, push each other and workout. There is a lot of team camaraderie.”

With the camaraderie and talent on John Jay’s girls squad, Wisdom is confident that combination can lead to success.

“We really want to win some dual meets,” Wisdom said. “We have a really competitive group of schools we are running against this year and we just want to keep up and beat a few teams.”

John Jay coach Jeffrey Tepper, who is assisted by Paul Saloom, Melissa Minichino and Suzanne Guziec, discussed what his expectations are for the Indians who have 125-130 athletes between both the boys and girls squads.

“The boys team, we are really trying to build up the team, trying to have strong performances,” Tepper said. "The girls team, we are looking for a little bit more to be in the top two or so in our league meet. We have some kids that are doing pretty well. We had a javelin kid last year who won the sectionals in Stephanie Riocci.”

Fox Lane

On the girls side, the Foxes are led by senior Janice Johnson, a shot putter who was third in the state competition last spring and second at the states during this winter season.

“She has a lot of natural strength,” said Fox Lane coach Steve Petrillo, who shares coaching duties with Chris Dossena. “She does a lot of hard work in the weight room on her own outside of our daily practice. We expect big things from her. She has already committed to Albany on a scholarship for next year. That’s also something we like to highlight.”

Petrillo also expects big things from the distance crew of junior Rachel Eisman, junior Serena Malsin and sophomore Carly Schwartz.

“They can do everything from the 800 to the 3,000,” Petrillo said. “They can run individual events, they can run together as a relay team. Our distance runners are always the hardest workers we have on the track team. Those girls have over the years, they have established something that had been the missing piece of this team sometimes.”

Petrillo feels that the girls should be competitive in their league.

“Some of those individuals especially Janice and the distance runners, we expect to move into the post season, have a chance at sectionals and maybe even make a run at the states,” Petrillo said.

Leading the boys will be senior distance runner Carl Turner.

“He’s our team leader, we probably expect the most points out of him,” Petrillo said.

Senior Kenny Jones will make contributions as both a sprinter and high jumper.

Petrillo says that Jones is a team player who can contribute in a lot of different areas.

“I don’t know if there will be any individual event he will excel at but he will help the team wherever we need him,” Petrillo said.

Petrillo said he expects sophomore 110-hurdler Bryan Maidana to build on the success he had a year ago.

“The boys overall are a very deep team but don’t have a lot of front-runner quality,” Petrillo said. “We will be competitive in our depth, pick up the second, the third, the fourth-place finishes but we are missing out on some the front-runners that we had graduate last year.”