4 Photos
Josephine Mott REBECCA MCMANUS
Justin Gardner DREW BUDD
Jim Kinnier, left, coached the Pierson girls cross country team to multiple county titles including the past four straight years.
Yani Cuesta is coming over to coach the girls team.
For the first time in 20 years, Jim Kinnier isn’t the head coach of the Pierson girls cross country team.
Following the fourth consecutive season in which his team won a county title and qualified for the state championships, Kinnier said he gave serious thought throughout the year on whether he would retire or not. Having retired from teaching in June 2020, Kinnier said the more and more he thought about it the more he thought he’d retire from coaching, and so he did, officially, this summer.
“I enjoyed every second of it,” he said. “It was just time for me to stop coaching as well.”
Yani Cuesta, the longtime track head coach at East Hampton, who has never coached cross country before, is taking over the reins from Kinnier. She’s very aware of the success the girls team has had over the past half decade or so now and knows she’s got a very talented team on her hands.
The team will continue to be led by Josephine Mott, who really fueled the team’s run last season as a seventh-grader. Sara O’Brien, now a sophomore, also returns along with Greylynn Guyer, who is just one of three juniors on the team along with Briana Torres and Marissa Walter, and are the oldest on the team with no seniors. Sophomore Bennett Greene and eighth-grader Maggie Greenwald are also on the team.
Despite hot temperatures, Cuesta took the girls to their first meet of the season, the Jim Smith Invitational, at Sunken Meadow State Park in Kings Park on Saturday, and she was impressed by their times. Cuesta created two teams, a sophomore team of Bennett, Greenwald, Mott and O’Brien, and they wound up placing second. O’Brien and Mott finished within the top 25 of their race. The junior team of Guyer, Torres and Walter didn’t place but ran respectable times, Cuesta said. Guyer individually finished 15th in her race.
“The girls are in contention for the Class D title,” Cuesta said. “I think our toughest competition will come from Mattituck followed by Port Jeff. If we beat them then we can maybe have the league title. So definitely in contention.”
The girls will compete in League VIII this season, which for the first time possibly ever, has more Class D schools in it than C schools. Both Mattituck and Port Jefferson will compete in the league but are C schools, while Southold, Ross, Riverhead Charter, Smithtown Christian and Shelter Island are all D schools.
Gardiner To Continue To Pace Boys
The Pierson boys cross country team graduated a pair of talented runners in Coleman Dee and Griffin Greene, which head coach Joe Amato said are going to be tough to replace. But Justin Gardiner, a two-time state qualifier who finished 26th in the state last season in addition to earning All-Division and All-League honors, will continue as the team’s lead runner.
Amato called Gardiner, who is team captain, “the spearhead of the team.”
“An outstanding runner who has trained very hard over the summer to come into the season in exceptional good form,” he said.
Chad Federico, another senior, will add to the team’s leadership, Amato said. He was All-League last season and Amato said he has a very strong work ethic and comes into the year in good shape. Seniors Lance Schroeder and Matt Mattina return while sophomore Liam Remy will play a major role on the team this year, Amato said.
Amato said his team’s goals for the season are to continue to be a Scholar-Athlete Team, place as high as it can in League VII and vie for a county Class D title.
