Commack's Aidan Piracci took his training seriously to outrun the field

There are a number of clichés associated with hard work and effort. However, to Commack senior Aidan Piracci, those are not just common sayings that are seen in people’s social media bios and posts. Rather, those clichés are the story of how he got to where he is now.

Piracci won the 5,000 meter run in 16 minutes, 41.1 seconds at the boys cross country Suffolk Division championships at Sunken Meadow State Park on Monday. That time not only won him the Division II county championship — it also placed him first in the merged results for the best time of all runners.

Piracci had always been one of Commack’s better runners throughout all three seasons, but he never quite put in the work to elevate himself above the rest. He never trained in the summer before cross country until this year.

“I just didn’t want to; I didn’t feel like it,” Piracci said “I would try, and I just couldn’t stay into it.”

However, once last year’s Suffolk state qualifier meet came, Piracci got the kick in the behind he needed. His former teammate, Dylan Manning, qualified for the state championships, while Piracci missed out, as did the whole Commack team despite making it the year before.

That deeply bothered Piracci.

With Manning graduated and Piracci as the lead man, he has moved into a team captain role and fully embraced it. He spent the summer leading practice runs with his team, which has been a big help to first-year coach Rob Raeihle, who has replaced Paul Sleavensky after his retirement.

SEE PHOTOSPhotos: Suffolk boys cross country division championships

“I definitely could’ve gone to states with him, but I didn’t want it as much as he did,” Piracci said. “Looking back on it, I regret it a lot. I wanted a really good senior year. I’ve never fully stayed committed and run every single day, but this year, I have, and it’s paying off. It’s an awesome feeling to win something like this. For my guys who have graduated, it feels good to show them that I’ve always been this good.”

Shoreham-Wading River junior Spencer Lee placed second in the merge and won Division IV in 16:49.2. Floyd sophomore Vidal Macchia won Division I in 16:54 and placed third overall.

Division III was where the surprise came, as Sayville senior Dylan Walsh won it in 16:56.1, taking fourth place in the merge. Walsh has spent his whole high school career learning to hate losing — at least on the individual level. Now, he can finally start learning how to love winning.

“When you don’t achieve a goal, it’s so annoying,” Walsh said. “I just didn’t want to lose so much, I gave it my all. I was struggling to break 17 minutes for the longest time; I hated not being able to do that. It’s really fun to win. Losing sucks. I love this.”

Behind strong performances from juniors Seamus Taylor, Evan Levine and Griffin Tucker, as well as seniors Gabriel Ko and Andrew Mead, Northport scored 25 points to win Division II and 65 points to win the merge. Led in order by senior Jack Moylan, freshman Andrew Collins, senior Collin Savage, junior Thomas Wightman and senior Thomas Cerna, Smithtown’s combined team scored 32 points to win Division I.

In Division III, Eastport-South Manor scored 39 points on the backs of juniors Matthew Keller, Jack Mikula and Blake Fiori, as well as seniors David Metz and Sam Zvolensky. The Sharks finished tied in Division III scoring with Sayville. However, senior Nicholas Pugliese and junior Timothy Dodd finished higher than the Golden Flashes’ No. 6 and No. 7 runners, giving them the tiebreaker.

Port Jefferson won Division IV with 36 points between seniors Sviatoslav Zalizniak and Christopher Nam, juniors Sean Grossman and Christian Paterno and senior Chase Davis, in that order.

By Mike Anderson

michael.anderson@newsday.com

Mike Anderson is a high school sports reporter who has covered 12 sports so far at Newsday. He was the sports editor of Stony Brook University's campus newspaper for two years.