Friday, March 28, 2025
Three track and field athletes from the Massapequa girls’ team qualified for the New York state championships next month after their impressive showings at the Feb. 10 state qualifier at St. Anthony’s High School in South Huntington.
Keira McLaughlin followed up her county championship performance by winning the pole vault and fellow junior Sophia Vukelic and senior Riahanna Kuhns will be joining her at the Ocean Breeze Athletic Complex in Staten Island after finishing second in the 1500-meter run and shot put, respectively.
Coach Mike Dellicurti believes any one of them has the potential to land on the podium.
“Sophia can potentially do something really well,” he said. “She’s got a really good work ethic, and a few weeks of training is going to come in handy for her. She could possibly place in the all-state category, as well as Keira McLaughlin in the pole vault, and you never know what’s going to happen with Riahanna in the field events.”
McLaughlin cleared nine feet in the pole vault on her first try after achieving the same height on her second attempt during the Section 8 Class A County Championships at St. Anthony’s on Feb. 4. She finished eighth at last year’s counties at 6 feet, 6 inches, and enjoyed a redemption finish to this season.
“She’s come a long way,” Dellicurti said. “She struggled all year long. In the springtime last year, she had a huge [personal record] and was doing great, and then coming into the beginning of the season, she just couldn’t do it. And then, for some reason, this last month it just started clicking for her and she picked up where she left off.”
Kuhns’s final toss of 32-09.25 was more than two inches further than her mark at the counties.
Vukelic’s time of 4:50.04 in the 1500 was almost two seconds behind East Meadow’s Zaria Hall and over four better than Chloe Connolly of North Shore. She finished third in that event’s final at the county championships to go with her runner-up showing in the 3000-meter run.
Nearly a week earlier, the Chiefs finished second at the county event with 77 points, the most for the girls since they amassed 101 in winning the 2020 Nassau Class A title.
“The girls did tremendous,” Dellicurti said. “We knew from the beginning of the season that we were going to be competing for a county championship and now we have some girls that qualified for states as well.”
Fifty of the 77 points were scored in the running events. Junior Emma Villalta finished second in the 600-meter run and fifth in the 300-meter dash, junior Kiera Conaghan was third in the 1,500-meter race walk with sophomore Rhyan O’Leary placing sixth, senior Shea Santiago and McLaughlin placed fourth and sixth, respectively, in the 55-meter hurdles, and junior Kyra Florio-Marinello was fifth in the 1,000-meter run.
The 4x400 and the 4x800 relay teams both finished fourth.
Junior Kailyn Duffy cleared 5 feet, 2 inches on her final high jump attempt to finish second for the second straight year, and freshman Leah Johnson was fourth in the pole vault.
