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Southampton senior Billy Malone at the start of the New York State Class B Championship race on Saturday.
Southampton senior Billy Malone finishes the New York State Class B Championships strong down the final 150-meter stretch.
Southampton’s Billy Malone achieved something that every senior strives to do when they embark on their final cross country season: reaching the sport’s pinnacle meet, the New York State Championships.
The senior finished the state Class B race this past Saturday at Chenango Valley Golf Course in 18:00.9, which placed him 61st out of 122 runners. But as his head coach, Eddie Arnold, explained, the results at the biggest meet of the year become almost secondary. Malone, he said, accomplished something that hundreds of athletes across the state didn’t, and many of whom never will.
“At this point and time, you have to be very happy to be here,” Arnold said. “Everyone says ‘good luck.’ It’s more like, ‘enjoy the experience,’ because he’s never been here before.”
Malone was the first Southampton runner since Gustavo Morastitla in 2016 to qualify for the state meet. The “B” race included some of the fastest runners in the state through all classes, including Gitch Hayes of La Salle Institute, which ran the fastest time of all runners in 15:37.1, and Westhampton Beach senior Gavin Ehlers, who finished second to Hayes in 15:45.7.
Because of that, the race got out to a fast start, Malone said, and then being that it was rainy, the course conditions were somewhat muddy and sloppy.
“I tried to keep up with those guys at the top. Those guys just went out and I just tried to hold it,” he said. “The course is pretty hard, I would say, for not running it before. There were some hills that definitely slow you down a bit, you just got to make it up on the downhills.”
While Malone was trying to finish in the top 24 to earn All-State honors, he was content with how he finished.
”I accomplished a lot of goals I had for a while so I'm petty happy with it,” he said. “Obviously I wanted to run a little bit better today but I’ll just learn from this and go into the next season.”
Arnold thought Malone ran a good race.
“I like the way he started the race, he went out well and he finished strong. Very happy with his performance at the state meet,” he said. “Every little thing would have given him an advantage running here, had he known the course. But the excitement here is outstanding, it really is, and there are no excuses. The key is he got to visit the experience, now this sets up him for his next challenge in his next season. Hats off to Billy Malone.”
Malone said he’ll go into the winter indoor track season, which officially began this week, running the mile and will eventually work his way down to the 800-meter race —in which he’ll plan to finish the season and go into the spring outdoor season competing in as well. With the way the indoor season is situated, and all schools grouped together and not separated by enrollment, it tends to make the winter state meet more difficult to reach. But both Arnold and Malone think he has what it takes to reach the spring track state meet, something they’ll be gunning for over the next few months.
As Malone put it, though, he has a good base now for the following seasons because of cross country.
“You got to visit the experience to know what it’s like,” Arnold said. “So now moving forward, I believe this season will set him up for the spring, for outdoor track.
“But I couldn’t be any happier, we reached our goals,” he continued. “Our goals from the beginning of the season were to be All-County and make the state team — mission complete, once again. We finished our goals.”
