1999 Foot Locker Northeast
Ed Grant's report on major upset
by Ed Grant
11/27/99 - Netters: There was a major upset at today's Northeast
Regional Footlocker trials at Van Cortlandt park., The races were run in near
perfect conditions, though there was some wind early in the day.
The upset came in the girls race and it was self-inflicted. Shalene Flanagan
of Marblehead, the prohbitive favorite in this race and one of the favorites for
the National title as well, ran herself into the ground for the 2nd year in a
row and again failed to finish, dropping out in sight of the finish line with a
sizeable lead. She took with her NJ champ Erin Donohue, the only runner in the
125-girl field to attempt to stay with the 2:29 first 880 pace. Donohue did
manage to finish in 78th place. The winner was Melissa Donais of Bradford,
Mass., who, I am told, is the granddaughter of 1950's roadrunning star Tony
Sapienze of the Boston AA. She finished 25 yards ahead of Danielle Jelley of
Westbury, NY, with another LI girl, former indoor national mile champ Jillian
Mastroianni of Sayville 3rd. NY had four qualifiers, Massachusetts three.
The boys race went to the sentimental favorite, Dan Coval of Holland (Council
Rock HS), Pa., with a comfortable margin over Tristan Colangelo of Gloucester,
MA, in 15:37. Londonderyy's David Barrett kept up school's great Footlocker
tradition in 3rd. For the first time ever, neither NY nor NJ had a qualifier,
though NJ AG champ Brian Kerwin of CBA did get the alternate slot in 9th. Two
teammates, Andrew Filachek and Brian Hoffman, finished 13th and 16th.
Coval might well have made the Nationals last year, but couldn't compete in
the regionals due to the stupid Pennsylvania rule prohbiting underclassmen from
taking part in post-season competition---even in events like the Footlocker meet
whose only connection with HS competiton is that each entry must be a
matriculated though not necessarily eligible student. For example, an overage
(by scholasric standards) Hackensack (NJ) athlete competed today and, last year,
the junior class event was won by Walton Kingsbery of Red Bank who was
ineligible for scholastic CC that season because he was competing in soccer (He
turned to CC this fall and finished 28th today in the championship race).
