Spring Sports Preview: Sleepy Hollow Track

Sleepy Hollow sophomore Mike Valentin is living proof that hard work pays off.

Valentin, who is in his second year on Sleepy Hollow's track team, has made great improvements in the events that he competes in, which include the 100 and 200-meter relays.

"You didn't look at him as a real fast runner and this year he is leading our groups," Sleepy Hollow boys track coach Paul Gersfeld said. "It shows that hard work pays off. Younger and older kids who used to be faster than him last year, now he's faster than them. He's put the hard work in, he's gone after it."

Gersfeld feels that one of the reasons Valentin has made such an improvement going into this spring is because of his upbringing

"He has done very well academically," Gersfeld said. "His parents taught him the importance of having a work ethic. That's the way he was brought up."

As for distance, Gersfeld said that he basically has a new group of kids who are doing well. He said that they are training extremely hard and thinks they are going to have a good spring.

Two of the key members of the distance crew are twins, juniors Erik and Mark Sanchez, who are the team's top mile and 800-meter runners.

Both are wrestlers and Gersfeld said that one can tell that they have done a lot of running during wrestling season and have come into the beginning of track in good shape.

"They are running decent miles," Gersfeld said. "I have been working with them for about a month. They should go under five minutes within the next meet or two."

Another key distance runner is David Maldonado, who was Sleepy Hollow's top freshman cross-country runner. He broke the school's freshman course record and his coach feels that he's going to be very talented distance runner in years to come.

Maldonado is one 45 boys are on the team this year. For the majority of them, this is their first year of being on the varsity boys spring track team.

"A lot of kids are using track to stay in shape for other sports to get faster," Gersfeld said. "They are using it as a tool to be better in other sports which is fine but when they are on track, they are track runners. Hopefully they are gaining speed or endurance or both for the other sports that they play."

Gersfeld said that those on the team, realizes there is no off-season thus the need to work out year-round.

"If they are football players, they have to stay in shape, if they play certain positions, they have to stay fast or they are not going to be effective," Gersfeld said. "And what better way to stay fast then run track."

When it comes to what goals he has for his team this season, Gersfeld said that he has individual expectations for each kid, which are detailed in individual conferences. That's where the coach and athlete go over the times they want to run, the times they should be running and some of their goals.

"If those kids improve, they will get the accolades," Gersfeld said. "We really focus on times, we don't focus on place at all. You could run 10.5 in the 100 and come in dead last and I'm happy but if you run 13 seconds in the 100 and come in first, I'm not very happy."