Southampton's Lombardi-Benvenuto Is Small Schools Champ in High Jump, Heads To State Championships This Weekend

In a short span of about three months, Livia Lombardi-Benvenuto has gone from someone without any experience in the high jump to Small Schools County Champion and a state qualifier.

The Southampton junior cleared 4 feet 10 inches at the state qualifier at Comsewogue High School on Friday, two inches higher than Southold junior Olivia Misiukiewicz, Mount Sinai junior Ava Archila and Babylon junior Ava Hanson, to claim the Small Schools title in the event and with it a trip to the New York State Track and Field Championships, which are this Friday and Saturday at Middletown High School.

Lombardi-Benvenuto went into last week’s meet with very little pressure due to the fact that she had very much already punched her ticket to states by clearing the state super standard, and a personal best, of 5 feet 3 inches, a week prior at the county championships. Still, she had to perform, and while she admitted it may not have been her best day, she still learned some things that she will take with her this weekend.

“It felt great going there, honestly, with no pressure, knowing that I didn’t have to qualify for anything since I had already done so at counties,” Lombardi-Benvenuto said. “I got the feeling at the start of the day that it was an off day for me. I wasn’t feeling great, and laying directly in the sun on such a hot day and not really eating something prior to the meet probably didn’t help.

“I just learned it takes a lot of focus, and it takes a lot of energy to jump,” she continued. “When you don’t have those things you won’t succeed so I need to stay hydrated and not lay out in the sun and stuff like that.”

Southampton girls track head coach Eddie Arnold said that while it was not her best meet, she was still able to outperform her competition, which says a lot.

“I think it was good for her to figure things out. She didn’t clear 4 feet 10 until her last jump,” he explained. “She had faulted on her first two jumps and cleared it on her last jump. She adjusted her steps. She was having complications the whole time with her steps, and I think with this being her first year doing the high jump, I was really impressed with how she was able to deal with minor setbacks and work through adversity. It was a good teachable moment.”

Lombardi-Benvenuto said Arnold introduced her to the high jump this past March and really just kind of fell in love with it from the start.

“I just found it fun,” she said. “I tried other events like the long jump, which I didn’t like. I loved the feeling of getting over the bar. It’s something I could see myself wanting to improve on and something that I could see myself actually improving in so ever since then it’s been so important to me, getting higher.”

And that’s what she plans on doing this weekend upstate, trying to improve her personal best and going from there.

“I want to make sure I do my best,” she said. “Make sure I’m prepared and using everything that I have into these jumps.”

Southampton had another pair of juniors, Kyla Cerullo and Jeorgiana Gavalas, and sophomore Harper Souhrada, all compete as well. Cerullo finished 16th in the county in the 100-meter dash in 13.24 seconds while Gavalas finished 16th in the 2,000-meter steeplechase in 7:57.88. Souhrada cleared 8 feet in the pole vault to finish 22nd in the county.

It seems, at least in the past few weeks, that it’s been one injury after the next for the boys team, and that certainly was the case at last week’s state qualifier.

The Mariners’ 4x100-meter relay team of sophomores Tanner Marro, Devon Palmore, Jett DeSane and Hudson Fox had performed well when they were all healthy, to the point that they were the top-seeded Division II team going into the state qualifier. But Fox sustained an ankle injury a few weeks ago that made him miss the county championships, and Palmore was also nursing a knee injury. But all four came into last week’s meet healthy and ready to make their bid to the state meet.

That was until Marro tweaked his hip running in the 200-meter dash last Thursday. In visible pain afterward, Marro tried to power through it and give it a go. As the lead-off leg of the relay, he got out of his blocks clean only for his legs to completely come out from underneath him about 60 feet into the race. Marro never got to hand off to Palmore, instead he laid on the track in visible pain and was helped off the track by the trainer on hand and coach Arnold.

Southampton boys track head coach Tony Dottin provided an update on Monday on Marro’s injury, which is a fracture in his pelvic growth plate, typically referred to as an avulsion fracture. It is a serious injury, Dottin confirmed, but at the same time noted that Marro is young and should be able to recover. As for the relay team itself, the future remains bright, he said, because all of the runners are so young.