Westhampton Beach Senior Jackie Amato Wins Division III Cross Country Title

Nothing was going to stop Jackie Amato from winning the Division III girls cross country title. Not even a mid-April nor’easter.

The storm that swept through the region brought torrential rains that made for treacherous race conditions this past Thursday, April 15, at Sunken Meadow Park in Kings Park. But the Westhampton Beach senior overcame all obstacles to win the 2.5-mile race in 15:38.68, a little over 20 seconds ahead of Eastport-South Manor freshman Anna Gansrow, who finished in 16:01.74.

After placing sixth in the division race as a freshman in 2017, Amato placed fifth the following year, then came close in 2019, ultimately placing second to Mount Sinai’s Sarah Connelly, before finally breaking through with last week’s victory.

“I know that we run in anything, so I wasn’t expecting the meet to be postponed or anything, but it wasn’t just a light rain. It was a steady downpour of rain,” Amato said. “I knew since it had started raining early that the course was going to be a disaster. I definitely had to be more careful than normal on the downhills, and it was totally different running on the [2.5-mile] course, which it was my first time on that course. But to be honest, I had fun running in the rain. It was a distraction to the pain.

“Since we weren’t originally going to even have a season, or a postseason, it’s nice to win a division title,” she added.

Westhampton Beach head coach John Broich said Amato ran a very strong race.

“She did really well,” he said. “She executed the hard part of the course very well, basically from Snake Hill all the way to Cardiac [Hill]. She had a lot of improvement through her last 900 meters.”

Westhampton Beach wasn’t able to qualify as a team for the upcoming Suffolk County Class B Championships taking place at Sunken Meadow this Thursday, April 22, but, with the way the placements shook out, Amato will still have some teammates join her at that meet. With top team ESM’s runners thrown out, the next top five ‘B’ runners from divisionals advance to counties. Kiera Falvey and Oona Murphy were the fourth and fifth runners, respectively, in the class and will therefore get one more final race before the end of the season.

As the top-seeded ‘B’ runner in the county, Amato will be looking for a county title this week, but considering the past year and all that it has entailed, she wasn’t putting an emphasis on it being a must-win race.

“I would say that’s my goal,” to win, she said. But, “it’s the last race of my high school career before I go into lacrosse season. I just want to go out there and have fun and do the best that I can.”