Hightstown Boys Track Working Way to Opener

Editor's note: Tuesday's boys' track meet against Steinert High School has been canceled due to the weather.

While the squad had some success during the winter season, Coach Jim Firtek said he's excited to see what his boys can do now that the whole squad is together.

"You take the guys that competed in the winter and fill in with guys that were playing other sports and then you have this train moving forward," Firtek said.

He's now in the process of getting that train finely tuned and ready to be going at full steam for the season opener. The Hightstown High boys track team will open with a meet at home against Hamilton's Steinert High School that was scheduled for today, Tuesday, until rainy weather canceled the meet.

"That's a good measuring stick for us," Firtek said of Steinert as an opening day opponent. "That meet will kind of tell us where we are as a team. We'll see what we can accomplish and what goals we can set for the kids individually."

This past winter, Tyler Foss and the 4x400 squad both qualified for the Central Jersey Group III championships.

Foss (a senior that competes in the 800 and 4x400) leads a solid group of distance runners. Other distance runners that should make those events a strength for Hightstown are Matt Nash (1600), Davis Soldo (1600), Matt Beehler (1600), Zachary Chen (800), Emmanuel Marfo (800), Ashwin Narayan (3200), Jared Sokoloff (1600), Kapil Khatri and Steven Vitabile (1600). Nash and Soldo are seniors, while the other guys are juniors.

Joey Lenart (a senior) joined Foss and Marfo on Hightstown's successful winter 4x400 team. He also runs the 400 hurdles.

Abdul Namoya (senior), Eric Anderson (junior) and Nick Astone (junior) all run the 100 and 200 and do the jumps. Seniors Anthony Desmond, Markis Rey and Ayo Sonubi also do sprints. Juniors Cameron Harper and Benedict Joseph are other sprinters.

Daniel Katz (senior), Andrew Kim (senior) and Steven Segal (junior) compete in the pole vault.

James Beaty, Cooper Walsh and Jimmy Nottingham are seniors that compete in the shot put, and Angel Guzman does that and discus. Juniors Michael Kesting (javelin), Donald Chao (discus), Rishab Sud (shot/discus), Michael Ortega (javelin) and Marcus Lawrence (shot) also compete in the throwing events.

Douglas Byas, a junior, is a hurdler.

Hightstown also has several upperclassmen that are still determining their best events. Jovann Johnson, a senior, is in that group. So are juniors, Josh Abraham, Manuel Calvache, Chris Encalada, Andrew Gottfried, Christian Naranjo, Jared Pitcher, Louis Press and Yifang Zhao.

The sophomore on the team are Conor Alpaugh, Kwaw Annan, Evan Benson, Michael Boateng, Jude Brenya, Anthony Bruton (800), John Carroll, Tristan Duenas, Rohith Gujja, Hector Herrera-Castillo, Christian Ibarra, Alexander Mintz, Nicholas Mitchell, Ashish Nagi, Kevit Modh, Vinay Naidu, Mitchell Nicklaus (javelin), Amar Parikh, Jaynam Patel, Hector Pelaez, Joseph Ra, Shaqui Retes and Mohammad Yassen.

The freshmen out for the team are Vrutant Amin, Kobie Crosley, Luke Dermody (1600 and 3200), Alex Glasser, Justin Haughton (pole vault/javelin), Albert (Angelo) Inglisa, Rad Myslowski, Ryan Kaminski, Ash Kondapalli, Thomas Press, Chad Preston, Beshoy Saif and Rishi Sud.

The assistant coaches on the team are Tom McCafferty, who specializes in distance runners, and Matt Durstewitz, who works mainly with the sprints. Firtek handles the throwers. And while Kim Kryscnski is an assistant with the girls team, she helps out with the pole vaulters on the boys team.

With 77 guys on the team, the coaches have a lot to keep them busy. Hightstown also certainly will have enough guys to fill out all the spots in all of the events.

 "As a team, we are really looking forward to the season," Firtek said. "The guys have been working really hard to get ready for the season. We'll just take the opponents one at a time and see how we match up."