Le Roy Boys' Track & Field

The Boys' Track and Field Team capped a nearly perfect season on Friday, May 26th at Campbell-Savona High School as they finished 2nd overall in Sectionals. This concluded their 3rd straight undefeated regular season where they also won the Dansville, Le Roy and Livonia Invitationals. "The second place finish was done with our depth," said Coach Jay Laitenberger. "All season long we have picked up points in almost every event out scoring teams that had only a handful of very talented runners." The boys' team scored in 17 of the 19 events at Sectionals. Of the 17 events they scored in, the Oatka Knights scored in multiple places in 7 events. "With a team as large and talented as ours, we still had fresh runners on their 2nd event late in the night when everyone else was on their 3rd or 4th event" said Senior captain Jim Schwab.

Sophomore Marcus Epps started the night off by winning the shot put. Marcus went on to be the only Sectional Champion from Le Roy. "It's even more amazing that we finished 2nd as a team when you realize that we only won one event," said Laitenberger. Jake Sullivan dropped his school record in the Steeplechase by 26 seconds as he finished 2nd to help build Le Roy's momentum. The 400 Relay Team of Mark Bennett, Craig Tiberio, Ian Humphrey and Alonzo Wilson just beat the 5th place team at the finish line. Moments later, Bennett was back on the track in the 1600 Relay along with Jim Schwab, Josh Risewick and Nick Piazza to also finish 4th. Tyler Murray set a new career personal record in the mile where his 3rd place finish almost broke the sub 4:45 barrier. Freshman Ryan Bishop moved past several people in the final 200 meters to grab 6th place for Le Roy. "All along we had been talking about how the young guys would need to step and grab an extra point here and there which is exactly what Ryan did," added Laitenberger.

Both Bobby and Mike Humphrey advanced into the finals of the 110 Hurdles and finished 3rd and 4th respectively. This was only the start of a long successful night for the Humphrey family. Ian finished second in the pole vault, while Mike finished 5th in the 400 Hurdles. The 3 brothers would tie for 5th place in the High Jump.

Freshman Alonzo Wilson advanced into the finals of the 100, beating people he had not previously beaten this season. In the finals, he ran one of the fastest races of his young career to finish 4th. Jim Schwab came off an impressive 4 x 400 earlier in the night to finish 5th in the 800. The 3200 Relay team of Josh Nilsen, Jake Sullivan, Tyler Murray and Pat O'Halloran finished 4th. Tom Bestor and Justin Casper finished 4th and 5th in the Pentathlon. Craig Tiberio became one of the leading scorers for Le Roy with his two second place finished in the long jump and triple jump.

Le Roy's success did not stop a the Sectional Championships. In the Freshman / Sophomore Invitational at Le Roy the boys won off the talents of Matt Van Buskirk's 1st in the 200, 3rd in the 100 and as a member of the winning 400 and 1600 Relay teams. Joining Matt on those teams was Ethan Belcher, Donny Pangrazio and Conor O'Halloran. Conor also finished 1st in the 400 and 2nd in the 200. Ethan won the Triple Jump and placed 2nd in the Long Jump. Josh Miller finished 3rd in the Discus after his first season in the sport.

The seniors that graduate this season have only one loss to their record in the past 4 years. They have consistently been at the top of the Invitationals they attended and were among the best teams at Sectionals each of the past 4 years. Laitenberger said that "even though we lose talented seniors like Jim (Schwab), Mark (Bennett) and Bobby (Humphrey), we still have a lot of quality depth in our younger guys. And after a season like this one, those young guys are still hungry for more next year".