O’Connor, Berrio, Bitten among standouts
By: Rudy Brandl
The Hillsborough High indoor track and field athletes took another large bite out of the Big Apple in their annual trip to the Martin Luther King Invitational last week. The Raiders swept the team titles for the second consecutive year and the HHS boys captured the crown for the third straight time.
It was a long day for the Hillsborough athletes, who showed up at school for a 6 a.m. bus departure and didn’t return home until nearly 15 hours later. There were over 150 teams at the event, which ran for nearly 12 hours and produced a whopping 46 pages of printable results from its Web site.
"We took 100 kids up there and they all competed for free," HHS head coach Rich Refi said. "There were a lot of teams there and we got a chance to compete at the Armory. We had a good meet."
The Raiders may have been feeling tired and sleepy at times, but they certainly woke up once they entered The 168th Street Armory.
"I’m not even up that early for school," said senior Matt Bitten, who helped the HHS boys roll to the team title by competing on two first-place relays. "It was extremely quiet on the way there. Once the events started, people started to wake up."
Bitten joined Adam Mallet in leading the Raiders to a 1-2-3 sweep in the pole vault late in the afternoon. Bitten and Mallet each cleared 12 feet to accumulate the winning mark (24-0), which is also a new school record. Teammate Steve Theroux also hit 12-0 and joined John Tan (10-6) as the event runner-up. Josh Cohen and Jeremy Eckles combined for third place.
"Adam and I came in and thought we could win it," Bitten said. "It was awesome to go 1-2-3. We just about won the meet on that alone."
Bitten also participated on the winning distance medley relay, running the 400 leg to help the Raiders prevail in 10:55.75. Fredy Irizzary and Mike Bitten also set the stage for anchorman Brian Dennis.
Chris Berezansky (49-10) and Mo Lang (43-5) didn’t have much competition and won the shot put relay by nearly 10 feet.
Dennis finished second in the mile, running an impressive 4:24.79 to close in on Miguel Jones’ school record. The Hillsborough junior has plenty of big races coming up in February and is primed to peak for them.
The HHS boys also had multiple scorers in the shuttle hurdles and long jump relays. The team’s depth was evident when the B team of Mallet, Dan Millemann and Alex Lang (3rd, 26.93) actually ran faster than the A team with Tyler Szwarc, Matt Bitten and Matt Frangione (28.06) in the shuttles. Anthony Visicaro and David Eilbacher combined for third place (37-9) and Julian Santiago and Lem Brown teamed for fifth (36-11¼) in the long jump.
Other Raider points came from the 4×800 team of Mike Bitten, Irizarry, Adam Walzer and Paul Bernardo (2nd, 8:28.44) and Eilbacher and Santiago in the school record-setting triple jump (3rd, 80-6).
The HHS boys finished with 44 points, more than twice as many as runner-up Sheepshead Bay (21).
"I didn’t think we’d be as strong as we’ve been," Matt Bitten said. "Everyone’s been picking it up and it’s a nice surprise to do so well."
The Raider girls scored 22 points to edge Newburgh Free Academy (19). Victories in the shuttle hurdles, pole vault and shot put keyed the repeat championship.
Junior Robin Friedman set a school, county and meet record by clearing 11-7 in the pole vault. Friedman and Eileen Cafferty (9-6) combined to beat every other school by at least six feet. Friedman’s mark is also the sixth-best in New Jersey history.
Melissa Arango, Sylwia Tyksinski and Lauren Watts tied Paul Robeson for first place in the shuttles (27.84). The vaunted shot put tandem of Taryn O’Connor (35-2¼) and Ingrid Berrio (34-4) had an average day but were still good enough to win comfortably.
"I was happy we won," O’Connor said. "Coach always says a lot of people come to the Armory and there was a lot of competition. Our team is doing really well."
The Raiders also picked up points in the 4×800, where Cafferty, Melanie Gingras, Ingrid Mellor and Allison Marcsisin took fifth in a time of 10:21.34. Friedman and Watts combined to finish fourth in the triple jump (62-7½) and Watts and Arango placed fourth in the pole vault (12-0).
Hillsborough also fielded freshman teams at the MLK meet and both scored points. The HHS freshman girls tied Newburgh Free Academy for first place in the team standings, while the boys placed ninth.
Overall, it was another great experience for the HHS winter track and field program, which will continue training for the Skyland Conference Championships, set for Feb. 4 at Lehigh University.

