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Southampton senior Billy Malone qualified for the state meet on Friday.
Junior Evan Simioni was the next Mariner to finish after Billy Malone.
Saintino Arnold and his father and head coach Eddie Arnold share a moment after he finished his final race of his cross country tenure.
Mariner Billy Malone qualified for states on Friday.
With a little bit of help from his head coach Eddie Arnold, Billy Malone continues on his way to qualifying for states.
When he crossed the finish line on Friday at the Section XI Championships at Sunken Meadow State Park in Kings Park, Southampton senior Billy Malone accomplished goals that were two years in the making.
Not only had he become an All-County cross country runner, but he was moving on to the New York State Championships, which are this Saturday, November 13, at Chenango Valley State Park.
Malone was all smiles after Friday’s race, a departure from his usual stoic and unassuming stature. After all, he had just run his best race of his career, finishing sixth overall in the county Class B race in a personal best 17:34, and even better was the fact that there was no guesswork needed to figure out if he was going upstate or not. It was pretty obvious.
“It feels pretty good. I can’t really describe it, but it feels good,” Malone said, following the race. “I wrote down my goal for the time for the race and where I wanted to place and qualify for states, all goals that I’ve had since junior year. I wrote them down and I looked at it every day and now I got it.”
Southampton head coach Eddie Arnold said he was proud of Malone for multiple reasons, maybe none more so than the fact that he had to quarantine on four separate occasions last school year due to COVID-19 protocols, which severely hampered his training. But to Malone’s credit, Arnold said, he never gave up.
“I can’t tell you how proud of him I am because here’s a kid that went through four quarantines, missed like 44 days of training,” he explained. “I wasn’t allowed to train him. He sacrificed, he sacrificed his social life with his peers and that’s what sport is about, it’s about sacrifice. It’s a give-and-take, and any time you get to this level something has to give. He became a lifeguard over the summer, so he was focused and he really wanted it.”
Arnold added that he thought it helped Malone having his teammates run in the race with him, which they were able to do based off their performance at divisions. Junior Evan Simioni was the next Mariner to finish after Malone in 18:57.4, followed by freshman Tanner Marro (56th/20:21.8), senior Saintino Arnold (60th/20:58.1), junior Joey Cerullo (64th/22:08.7), senior Christopher Matamoros (65th/22:41.7) and freshman Daniel McDonnell (66th/22:55.9).
“I really think it made a difference having his teammates run with him, having the family, his teammates, which are our family,” Arnold explained. “I think having the team there kind of relaxed him because that’s what he’s been used to the whole season. All the personalities that are there just to calm his nerves. And they all look up to Billy as the big brother.”
Malone admitted after Friday’s race that he hadn’t done any research into the state meet so as to not jinx himself. The course at Chenango Valley is mostly on a golf course with some rolling hills, but it’s not expected to be as difficult as the course at Sunken Meadow, which bodes well for Suffolk runners.
After Malone qualified for states, and Arnold’s son, Saintino, crossed the finish line in what was his final cross country race of his high school tenure, the coach admittedly shed a few tears for what he called a bittersweet moment.
“I kind of got a little choked up,” he said. “It hit home because as a father and a coach you wear so many hats and it hit me when Billy crossed the line and then my son crossed the line and they both had the same impact as far as I was joyful in both areas, they were happy tears, but there was a realization that my son will never run cross country for me ever again.”
