Wednesday, July 9, 2025
Everything was lining up right again for the Calhoun girls’ track and field team this spring. They extended their meet winning streak to 113 en route to an eighth straight conference championship and was one event away from successfully defending their county title, but a rival school swooped in and stole it away.
The Colts placed second at the Section 8 Class AA Championships with 65 points at Hewlett May 19 after the host team surpassed them in the pole vault to finish with 73 and the county title. Calhoun captured the program’s first-ever spring county title last year.
“They absolutely were disappointed because they lost, but they ran their hearts out,” Colts coach Dave Hendler said. “Most of them had their best times or their best jumps. They really did everything they had to do to win, they just fell short.”
Calhoun headed into the pole vault tied with Manhasset with 61 points and had just one entrant in senior Lauren Rosario, who was also competing in the high jump and long jump almost simultaneously. A very game Rosario cleared eight feet on her second attempt to place fourth, but three Hewlett competitors finished first, second, and fifth for a total of 20 points and Manhasset only mustered a half point among its three athletes, which proved to be the difference.
“She was going back and forth from the pole vault to the long jump and she was just high jumping, so her legs by the time she was pole vaulting were dead,” Hendler explained.
Rosario’s season-best leap of five feet in the high jump was good for second place and she was third in the long jump when she reached 15 feet, 10.25 inches on her sixth and final attempt.
Senior Dana Wauchope was Calhoun’s lone county champion when she won the discus in shocking fashion. She had tosses of 86-5 and 88-9 on her first and third throws, respectively, before reaching a whopping 112-9 on her fourth, a personal-record that held up.
Wauchope finished fourth in the shot put earlier in the meet.
“She wanted to win,” Hendler said. “She got fourth in the shot put, and she was a little bit unhappy with that. She saw her first three [discus] throws she was unhappy with. I said nothing to her. She knows what she has to do. She took care of business.”
Senior Milan Alexander had a season-best leap of 33-8.5 to finish second in the triple jump and freshman Jenny Gasparello showed early signs of being a future star by setting personal records in the long, triple, and high jumps.
In the running events, senior Kaitlyn Stibritz finished third in the 1,500-meter run with a personal-best time of 5 minutes, 3.65 seconds and placed the same in the 3,000 meters with a season-best mark of 11.05.35. Freshman Noora Ibrahim and senior Kiera Brown both set personal records to finish fourth and fifth, respectively, in the 2,000-meter steeplechase
It is unknown who will be competing at the upcoming state qualifier from June 5-6 as it conflicts with the school’s prom.
