Marisa D'Angelo helps vault St. Anthony's to CHSAA intersectional title

Marisa D'Angelo of St. Anthony's won the pole vault with a mark of 12 feet, 6 inches at the CHSAA Intersectionals 2021 at Ocean Breeze Athletic Complex, Staten Island on March 7, 2021. Credit: Errol Anderson
When Long Island went into quarantine last March, it was hard for many athletes to find motivation to keep training. And who could blame them? The disappointment of losing a spring season, coupled with the uncertainty of what fall might bring, was enough to bring even the most optimistic of competitors down.
Through it all, St. Anthony’s pole vaulter Marisa D’Angelo just kept waiting for the call. She knew that pole vaulting eventually would return and she wanted to be ready.
Indeed she was.
D’Angelo put forth an outstanding winter season, one in which she set a Long Island record and won a CHSAA indoor intersectional track and field championship.
The latter came Sunday at Ocean Breeze Athletic Complex on Staten Island where D’Angelo cleared 12 feet, 6 inches to win the pole vault and help St. Anthony’s win the team championship with 50 points. Staten Island’s Notre Dame Academy was second with 44.5 points.
Sunday’s win came despite D’Angelo suffering a leg injury in practice this week, she said.
"It made it harder because I developed a lot of speed via acceleration down the runway," D’Angelo said. "So, my last three steps are definitely a lot faster and I wasn’t able to do that as well."
But, like most jumps this winter, D’Angelo was tops. She credits most of this season’s success to her quarantine training.
"I wasn’t able to pole vault during quarantine for obvious reasons, and it kind of forced me to work on speed and running form, which helped me a lot," D’Angelo said. "Last year, my running form was nowhere as good as it is now."
D’Angelo had to push through the ongoing uncertainty of when she’d finally be able to get back in the air.
"I just never knew when it was going to end," she said. "What I did know was that I wanted to be ready for the day that my coach called me and said that I could vault again. So, I knew that I had to be in top shape. I constantly ran in the yard and tried to do all sorts of different workouts to get stronger."
The payoff came in spades. She cleared over 12 feet in all seven meets, 12-6 or higher in four, and set the Long Island record at 13 feet last weekend, breaking the previous record of 12-10, set by Mount Sinai’s Amy Linnen in 2000, according to tullyrunners.com.
"It was really unreal," D’Angelo said of breaking the record. "I was so excited I almost ran into an ongoing race."
Elsewhere on Sunday, D’Angelo’s teammate Jacqueline Borruso won the weight throw, tossing 38-1.
"[Last week], I wasn’t doing my two turns very well," Borruso said. "I was just focusing more on one turn. Then this week at practice, we focused all on my turn technique. I really was able to buckle down on that and get my turn technique to be the best that it could be, which then resulted in me throwing as far as I could."
Borruso, who also took second in the shot put (29-2), said she initially was concerned about going to meets at Ocean Breeze during a pandemic, but after hearing how safe conditions were, she competed in the last two.
"I was very comfortable," Borruso said. "Ocean Breeze does a fantastic job of keeping everything clean and safe, and so do my coaches. They do a great job making sure we’re all comfortable."
On the track, St. Anthony’s 4 x 800-meter relay team, composed of Caelan Schretzmayer, Angelina Desjardin, Emma Rodriguez and Kelly Parker, won in 10 minutes, 21.01 seconds.