Riverview relay falls just short of medal at PIAA championships

By: Michael Love
Saturday, June 1, 2024 | 11:01 AM

Members of the Riverview track and field teams competed in five events at the PIAA Class 2A championships in Shippensburg, and the boys 3,200-meter relay came the closest to making it onto the medals podium.

Junior Holden Deasy, sophomore Braden Longstreth and juniors Christopher Barnes and Micah Ivy came in seeded 16th for their race May 25 after taking fifth at WPIALs in a season-best 8 minutes, 16.03 seconds. They had designs of moving up into medal contention.

They also were the second-seeded team in Section 1 of the two-heat final. Only District 2’s Lake Lehman was faster at 8:14.87.

The Riverview quartet ran to a time of 8:13.79, besting their previous season-best from WPIALs by 2.24 seconds. They rolled to the Section 1 win by 5.5 seconds over Lake Lehman.

However, the time was not enough to get them on the medals podium. They had to settle for a close ninth, as eight teams from Section 2 recorded faster times. That included eighth-place finisher Susquenita from District 3 at 8:10.79.

Quaker Valley (third), Winchester Thurston (fourth) and Ellwood City (sixth) represented the WPIAL on the medals stand.

“The boys’ time of 8:13 compared favorably with recent Raider medal-winning performances in the event: 2022 (sixth, 8:16) and 2021 (eighth, 8:16),” Riverview distance coach Palma Ostrowski said.

“All four are underclassmen, so they will look forward to taking another shot at the podium next year.”

The girls 1,600 relay of juniors Katerina Tsambis and Cailey Trosch and seniors Jonisha Carlino and Lola Abraham returned to the PIAA championships hoping to build on their school-record performance of 4:09.49 (fifth place) from WPIALs.

Seeded 13th, the quartet closed out events on the track May 24 a few seconds off their WPIAL time as they finished 18th in a time of 4:14.00.

Other individual finishes for the Raiders included senior Carlo Buzzatto in the discus (16th, 124-3), Abraham in the triple jump (17th, 32-2.5) and Ivy in the 800 (27th, 2:03.17).

The PIAA championship meet closed out the multisport athletic careers of Carlino, Buzzatto and Abraham.

Abraham, the Valley News Dispatch Girls Soccer Player of the Year for 2023, soon will join the women’s team at Pitt.

Buzzatto also has been invited to play on the USA Football U20 team which will challenge eight other countries in an international tournament in two weeks in Edmonton, Alberta.

After that, he will continue preparation for his freshman season on the football team at St. Francis (Pa.).

Layne, Proskin represent Plum at states

Plum sophomore Owen Proskin made his PIAA championship debut, and junior Gabrielle Layne returned to Shippensburg on May 24.

Proskin entered the 110 hurdles as the 26th seed after earning an automatic berth to states from the WPIAL championships.

He was the eighth seed in his heat and ran a time of 15.06, identical to what he recorded at WPIALs. Proskin ended seventh in his heat and 22nd overall.

He set the boys 110 hurdles school record with a time of 14.90 at the Norwin last-chance meet May 9.

Layne qualified for states in the 100 for the second year in a row. Last year, she was 24th with a time of 12.61.

A 12.23 recorded at WPIALs was her personal best and put her as the eighth seed overall and second in her heat.

She was slightly elevated in her heat time to 12.45, and that placed her fourth in the heat and 23rd overall.

After about a five-hour break, Layne returned to the track for the 200 prelims.

Layne set a school record (25.40) at WPIALs and hoped to go lower than that at Shippensburg.

Her time, however, was elevated to 25.69 in her heat, but she maintained her heat seed (fifth) and her overall seed (21st).

Michael Love is a TribLive reporter covering sports in the Alle-Kiski Valley and the eastern suburbs of Pittsburgh. A Clearfield native and a graduate of Westminster (Pa.), he joined the Trib in 2002 after spending five years at the Clearfield Progress. He can be reached at mlove@triblive.com.

Tags: Plum, Riverview