Southampton's Billy Malone Is Division IV Cross Country Champion

Southampton’s Billy Malone came into this season with a number of goals he wanted to achieve during his senior campaign. So far, so good.

Malone was the Division IV champion at the division championships at Sunken Meadow State Park in Kings Park on Thursday, October 28, after finishing the 5K race in 17:40.5, 16 seconds ahead of the next finisher, James Mintell of Center Moriches. He even exceeded his head coach’s expectations by finishing 16th overall in the county.

“My goal for him was to place in the top 20,” Southampton cross country coach Eddie Arnold said. “Any time you get into a race like this where there’s large schools, you want to be with the big dogs and he ran this very well. He had a PR. Last time he ran this course, he finished in 17:43, so he beat that by three seconds.

“Very pleased with his performance. I was very happy he competed and raced and ran very strong.”

The division championship races can be extremely tough, not just physically, but mentally as well, because there are close to 200 runners in each race. Things can get tight along the course, and because of that, it’s easy for a runner to feel like he or she is getting lost in the mix of it all. But the key is to stay focused and run, and that was what Malone tried to do.

“It was a pretty fast race today,” he said. “I tried to keep up with the faster guys. Cardiac [Hill] definitely slowed me down a little bit, but I worked the downhills after that so I picked up some time. Pretty happy with my race.

“I knew those top guys were going to go out fast, so I knew I had to save energy for the hard part and save it for the end,” Malone added.

Next goal for Malone? Achieve All-County status, which he can do by finishing in the top 40 in the county at the state qualifier, which is this Friday, November 5, back at Sunken Meadow. In addition to achieving All-County, Malone is eyeing a possible trip to the state meet.

As a team, the Mariners finished fourth in Division IV, with Port Jefferson taking the top spot with 53 points, followed by Bayport-Blue Point (54) and Center Moriches (71). Evan Simioni was the next Mariner to finish after Malone in 19:16.2, which placed him 13th. Saintino Arnold placed 22nd in 20:08.9, followed by Tanner Marro (25th/20:26.4), Joey Cerullo (27th/21:06.9), Daniel Palumbo (31st/21:32.5) and Daniel McDonnell (32nd/21:36.5).

“We have three freshman in the top seven, we’re very young,” Arnold said. “Aside from Billy and Saintino, who are seniors, and Evan who is a junior, we’re very young. Any time you put freshmen in a championship race, they don’t know what to expect. The good thing about it is you must visit the experience to understand the experience, so those three freshmen are now prepared for the next season.”

Southampton had an outside shot at making it to the state qualifier as a team. If it doesn’t make it, last week’s divisions were the last race for Saintino Arnold running for his father, Eddie. Saintino has run the past five years on the varsity team.

“They say the joke is it’s a blessing and a curse,” coaching your own son or daughter, Coach Arnold said. “I don’t want to say it’s been a curse, it’s been nothing but awesome. It’s hard coaching your son. I love him, it was a great run, and I look forward to seeing him run in college.”

Saintino is not the first Arnold to go through high school, that honor belongs to his older brother Eddie Jr., who spent a good portion of his high school years at William Floyd before the Arnolds moved to Southampton. Saintino, along with his sister Gabriela, who runs spring track, are the first to have been coached by their father.

“A lot of people don’t have their dads as their coach, I find it as a good opportunity to better myself, and it’s kind of cool, if I need to talk to him at home about something he always helped me out,” Saintino explained. “I enjoy it, I like it. Tough that it’s about to be over.”

A trio of girls competed in the team qualifying race for the Mariners and were led by Tuckahoe eighth-grader Hayden Gilmartin, who finished in 25:40.70, which according to Arnold, is the top time at Sunken Meadow for a Southampton girl this season. Senior Laine Yastrzemski finished in 27:20.50 and Ariana Pike, another senior, finished in 29:44.60.