Boys Cross Country Blow by Rival East Islip 16-44

With the month of October comes the most exciting time for high school cross country. For the West Islip boys cross country team, October means it's time to get serious, and the team started the month out right with a 16-44 win over archrival East Islip on a cloudy Tuesday evening at Sunken Meadow State Park.

"They did exceptional and they took it very seriously which is why they did so well," head coach Chris Kaigh said. "They take it seriously every week but particularly today because they knew that in our previous races we were running against teams that were faster, not better but faster, so today we were faster because they ran exceptionally well."

The Lions took places one, two, three and four before East Islip finished its first runner. West Islip then followed it up with the sixth and seventh finishers to close out the 16-44 victory.

"That score is close to a shutout," Kaigh said. "They ran exceptionally well. Ryan Tantone, he's been our top guy in every race we've ran so far and he ran 17:46 and won the race."

After Tantone, Steve Foppiano followed at 18:06 (all times are based on 5k). Bill Martin, the team's top sophomore, came in at 18:27. Freshman Scott Nelson, who according to Kaigh has been itching to get into the varsity races, ran an impressive 18:37 to come in fourth place. Senior Steve Hetterich came in at 18:55 and right behind him another senior Skylar Ellison finished at 18:57, closing out the scoring in a race that almost didn't happen because of a rain-filled afternoon. Fortunately, the clouds gave way to sunshine just in time for the race.

"I'm very pleased and I'm glad it stopped raining," Kaigh said.

The team is excited about its next competition on Saturday, Oct. 9 when they travel to Van Cortlandt Park in New York City for the Manhattan Invitational.

"This is the largest high school competition in the country with around 8,000 athletes competing on a single day with races all day and we'll be part of that," Kaigh said. "It's something they have to earn and they earned it quite well so we look forward to Saturday."

West Islip finishes its league competition next week against Bay Shore before the division championships and state qualifier at the end of the month.

"This is good," Kaigh said. "It's October, and we've talked about this, September is nice but it's almost like preseason. October is when it starts to get serious and they're quite serious. They're enjoying it and I'm quite pleased."