On Saturday March 11, the Bethpage Marine Fitness team traveled to Emmaus High School in Pennsylvania to compete for their first meet of the season. The competition consists of five events: crunches, pushups, standing broad jump, pullups, and a 300 yard shuttle run.

Bethpage had four teams compete: Girls A, Girls B, Boys A, and Boys B. Although four teams from BHS competed, only A teams were counted towards final placements. Each team has six members that compete together with a two minute time limit to complete each event.

After the girls and boys B teams had competed, it was time for the girls A team to begin. Every member of the team hit the maximum number of crunches (100) and the maximum number of pushups (60). 

Senior captain Erin O’Boyle said, “It was such a relief, we were all going into the third event with a perfect score.”

Every girl hit their goals in jumps and pullups and the final event began… the dreaded sprint. 

As junior Grace Severin said, “After the run, physically, you want to roll onto the ground and die. But mentally you could not be more proud of your teammates and yourself.”

Boys A was the last team to compete. The entire team lost many talented seniors in 2022. Despite this, new talent from many freshmen, sophomores, and juniors have contributed to the team’s success this weekend. Although this was a first meet for many team members, the boys pushed themselves by competing against incredibly talented teams such as South Bronx, Emmaus, and Penn Hills.

The team anxiously awaited the final team and individual results. 

Grace Severin said, “Waiting for scores is the most nerve wracking thing; you just want to do a good job for your teammates.”

Finally, the scoreboard was revealed and the results were fantastic. Bethpage girls A team won first place and Bethpage boys A placed second. In addition to the team accomplishments, there were many individual placements from Bethpage. BHS had four girls in the all meet team which are the top six scores of the entire meet. In first place Erin O’Boyle, second place Devyn Sparke, fourth place Grace Severin, and fifth place Nora Kerrigan. Caio Dasilva also placed fourth for the boys teams.

Captain Devyn Sparke said, “As a team we all came together and it just really unified us to endure that pain together.”

Head Coach Mr. Como said, “All I did was blow the whistle, the girls did all of the work.”

Ultimately, Saturday was a phenomenal season opener for all. Personal records were broken, medals were earned, but most importantly the hard work every single athlete has put into this team paid off.