On Jan. 22, boys track traveled to Staten Island for the annual Union County individual championship, and they did not disappoint, claiming second place behind Union Catholic while boasting numerous top marks in the state.
Starting the day was the men’s 1600-meter, where junior Brody Toriello and senior Jack Hill placed 3rd and 6th with times of 4 minutes and 29 seconds, and 4 minutes and 38 seconds, respectively. They tallied 7 points which was a great start.
Shortly after this was the 400, where senior Tyler Pietrewicz placed 5th with a time of 51.08, grabbing two more points for the Blue Devils and landing him in the 25th spot for all-time Westfield records in the 400 meter.
At the same time the 400 ended, the shotput came to an end as well, where senior Noah Rubenstein placed 2nd, launching a new personal record of 52 feet, flat. This mark earned him 7th all-time at Westfield, as well as 8 points in the meet. After throwing, Rubenstein said, “I was happy with it even though I did make some technical errors, I just need to work on speed and I should be able to push through that 52 line.”
Head coach Chris Tafelski was also pleased by his performance and believed that Rubenstein could do even better in the future. “[Caleb] Duvelson from Union has a considerable advantage over Noah with a 55 foot personal best to Noah’s 52 foot personal best. But, just because he’s thrown better than Noah at counties doesn’t guarantee that it will happen again at sectionals and groups. Noah is a consistent competitor, so he will be a factor going into the state meets.”
Directly after the 400 was the 800, where the Blue Devil easily had their best event of the day, having all three of their competitors score and even having senior Ryan Daly win first with a new Westfeld record and placed him eighth on the all-time New Jersey record list with a time of 1:54. The other two competitors, senior Kaleb Stoeckmann and junior Christian Buonopane, placed fourth and fifth, respectively. Both runners broke the two-minute barrier with times of 1:57 and 1:59, respectively. This event scored a whopping 18 points for the Blue Devils.
After the 800 was the 3200. Senior Cole Varner broke the 10-minute line for the first time in his career and put up an impressive 9:53 for 4th place, adding another 3 points for the Blue Devils.
The final oval event of the day would be the 4×400 meter relay, which consisted of senior Charlie Prieto, Pietrewicz, Stoeckmann, and Daly. They placed first with a time of 3:27, not only gaining 10 points for the team but putting them seventh on the Westfield all-time record list.
Daly, who split 50.27, said that his strategy going into this race was to “just run, the 4×400 is mostly dog, so it’s really fun to go out there and dog for the position and dog for the time which ended up working well for me and the team.”
As all this was going on, seniors Liam Morris, Sam Braun, and Charlie Vanecek were putting on a show in the field events. Morris won the pole vault with a height of 11 feet, and Braun placed 6th in the pole vault with a height of 9-7. Vanecek got 5th in long jump with a mark of 20-11 3/4. They all combined for 12 more points.
The Blue Devils have a bit of a break before they travel to the Group 4, North 2 sectional meet on Feb. 16.
