By Michael J. Lewis
With freshmen athletes, coaches never know exactly what they’re going to get.
Sometimes rookies are complete blank slates, and you have to mold them into competitive performers. Other times, you take one look at them and you instantly know “here’s someone who’s going to be great.”
For Schreiber High School girls track and field coach Jeremiah Pope, it was definitely the latter when he first got a glance at Ashley Carillo last fall.
The 9th grader came out for tryouts and Pope was immediately gobsmacked by something.
“No matter what she ran, she ran the same speed at all times,” Pope recalled. “Didn’t slow down, ever. She just kept going and going and was really happy to do whatever I asked. I kinda thought then we might have something here.”
Those instincts were proved very much correct, with Carillo and the rest of this year’s Vikings squad.
In early February the Schreiber girls won the Nassau County championship in their division for the first time since Ronald Reagan was President (1982). Then on Feb. 17 at St. Anthony’s in Huntington, Carillo won the 1,000 meter run at the state sectional meet, while teammates Eve Siff-Scherr (1,000 meters) and Bella Lucas (triple jump) also excelled enough to qualify for last weekend’s state championship meet on Staten Island.
At the state meet, Carillo finished 21st in the 1,000 meter run, in a time of 3:09.50. Siff-Scherr, competing in the 4×1000 intersectional relay, ran her leg is 3:12.91, and her team finished seventh overall, earning all-Federation honors.
And in the triple jump, Lucas placed 20th with a final leap total of 33’4.”
“This team is awesome and everyone is so supportive,” Carillo said. “We were so pumped to win (the county title) and for three of us to make states just made it so much better.”
Carillo, a former soccer player, said she’d always wanted to try track but the Covid-19 pandemic scotched her plans to try it in middle school. This year, she ran the 1,000, 1,500 and 3,000 while putting up outstanding times that have her in the Top 3 in the 1,000 all year. Her state-qualifying win was in 3:06.92.
Siff-Scherr, who reached the states in cross country in the fall, had a little more track experience coming into this season. She spent last school year at the prestigious sports-focused IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., before returning home to Port Washington.
“It was pretty intense but I liked it,” said the sophomore. “And this year, running all the different distances, I feel like I got faster every time.”
Siff-Scherr qualified for the states in the intersectional relay, which means she ran with three other runners from Nassau County, trying to put up the best time as a team to qualify as an all-state athlete.
Maybe the most surprised she was going to states was Lucas, a freshman who had never jumped in track in her life until this year.
“She was tall and had been a volleyball player so we figured she should try it, and then she just took off,” Pope said with a smile.
Lucas, who at 5-foot-9 clearly has the length to be a great jumper, said after her first triple jump at a meet this season thought “that wasn’t too bad, I might be OK at this.”
Still, she was stunned at her improvement at the state qualifier, leaping almost five feet farther than her previous high, to make states at 34 feet, 4.75 inches, the second-best jump at the meet.
“When the ref told me what my jump was I was really surprised and ecstatic,” she said. “And then I’m putting my sneakers and sweats back on and I’m just like “oh my god, I made it to states! And I ran over to everyone and gave them a big thumbs-up.”
Pope said his goal for all three is to not burn them out in these early years, and pace them so “they keep improving every year.”
“We’ve got a great group right now, a lot of kids who are natural athletes and had been in other sports and excelled,” Pope said. “We’re going to gradually build them and hopefully build on this success we had. I’m proud of all of them.”
