• Home
  • Posts
  • Strength in Numbers for Greenwich High Indoor Tracksters

Strength in Numbers for Greenwich High Indoor Tracksters

ghstrackprev2-1-8
Members of the Greenwich High School indoor track team take to the hallways of GHS during a recent practice. (Evan Triantafilidis photo)
Members of the Greenwich High School indoor track team take to the hallways of GHS during a recent practice. (Evan Triantafilidis photo)

On Greenwich High’s first day after the holiday break, indoor track head coach Evan Dubin has to rally his troops — all 234 of them — in preparation for another season and eyes on postseason promise.

In his fifth year as the Greenwich head coach, Dubin is no longer a stranger to the process of scouting his team before the regular season resumes this weekend at Southern Connecticut State University.

“After today, and at least from past experience, really being the first day back from vacation it’s kind of getting back into the flow, but after we get through today’s practice, people are going to be right back in it,” Dubin said. “After today we should be in good shape, in terms of our mindset at practice.”

The team will take a select few to SCSU on Friday before the entire team will gather on Saturday to meet against Staples High School.

“For this weekend, we are really trying to see what we have. When you look at past experience in years past, you know we have talented athletes but it’s really about what new people are going to shine and who can be better off in this event versus that one. It’s sort of a sit back and see where the talent lies.”

This year’s sure talent lies in the eight captains (four boys and four girls) and the experience they each bring to the squad.

Andy Kates, Sebastian Oe, Ryan King and Michael Gianesello will serve as the four boys captains while Caroline Frey, Anna Giannuzzi, Sabrina Thurber and Emily Wu will be captains for the girls.

“Our senior class is pretty strong,” Dubin said. “You can pretty much take any member of our senior class and they should do well. We also have a couple strong sophomores that have really shown some progress like Hetty McMillan, Emily Philippides and Maggie O’Gorman. Primarily our senior class of boys and girls is deep and they should do well.”

The boys team finished tied for sixth at last year’s FCIAC championship while the lady Cardinals captured fourth place.

The girls team placed first last year in the 4×800 Relay and in the Sprint Medley Relay with solid performances from both Frey and Giannuzzi.

However, the girls will be without Sarah Cicchetti, last year’s FCIAC girls shot put individual event champion, who threw for 39 feet, 3 inches in last year’s competition and who is now throwing for Boston University.

New to this season, the team will have help from Brian Robbins, an assistant coach under Dubin who raced for SCSU during his collegiate days. He says he can bring his knowledge of the sport to the team, specifically this weekend at his old stomping grounds in New Haven.

“I want to do things better than they have been done before,” Robbins said. “It’s just little progress while making big steps in the long-term. I know Coach Dubin has got a pretty hard workout set in place. You’ve got to keep the same mentality you have had since day one.”

“Coach is also from a really good school, Amity High School, which is one of the elite programs in the state. A lot of things that they do, we do here. It’s really about proper preparation and being ready for anything.”

Robbins also says he’s looking forward to seeing his team progress throughout the season, including one of his best long jumpers, junior Isaac Floyd.

“He’s had a very impressive jump so far — over 21 feet,” Robbins said. “He’s an impressive athlete to say the least. If he can get triple jump in there too, he can probably get an impressive jump out of that. On the sprinting side, we have a pretty good sprinting core and distance core. We just want to build off that.”

“Our high jump guys are all right on the cusp of being able to do really well. They just have to work on technique a little more. That’s one of the events that needs a lot of detail. It is a lot to do with how you approach the bar and where you are at mentally before your jump.”

Dubin praised Robbins’ experience at SCSU, where he competed at the Central Connecticut Invitational and the New England Championships for cross country and finished third in the 800 Meter Run at the Roadrunner Express Invitational during his senior year.

“His experience as a runner has been overly beneficial to the team where he can bring his own personal experience into his coaching,” Dubin said. “It’s going to be a sort of homecoming for him, so for him to be able to share that comfort feeling he has there with our athletes will hopefully benefit our team.”

Dubin also reflected on what he has learned in his five years at the helm of indoor track at GHS.

“It’s a little different than the spring with the limited facilities and having to go into meets with a calculated purpose of what results you are trying to take out.”

“You may want certain results in meet A but then you also have to look ahead to the following week and it’s kind of like putting together a puzzle. At the end of the season, you got a nice beautiful masterpiece, but it’s sort of chipping away at it a week at a time.”

Related Posts
Loading...