Miller Place's Jillian Scully sets state discus record at Suffolk 4B track and field championships
Miller Place's Jillian Scully competes in the girls discus during the Suffolk 4B track and field championships on Thrusday at Mt. Sinai. Credit: Neil Miller
Nearly every time Jillian Scully and Sophia McInnes enter a track and field meet, record books tremble in fear. Perhaps they have good reason to, as both were in rare form Thursday at Mount Sinai.
Scully, a senior at Miller Place, broke her own state discus record by throwing it 178 feet, 10 inches at the Suffolk Class 4B championships to win the county title by 52 feet, 1 inch. She also won the shot put with a throw of 46-6 1⁄4.
The previous discus record was 174-2, which Scully set at the Glenn D. Loucks Games on May 10 at White Plains High School, breaking a 33-year mark of 172-0, set by Stacy Schroeder of Grand Island in 1992.
“It’s the most satisfying feeling you could imagine,” Scully said. “It’s like the stars aligned, and it just happens. It’s the best feeling ever, and I’m so happy that it happens over and over. It never stops.”
Though Scully has rewritten history twice this month, this is actually something she expects of herself. Still, even though she had already done it once before, the feeling of breaking a state record is euphoric.
“I’m just happy at what I’ve accomplished so far, and I have no doubt that I can achieve farther throws,” Scully said. “I have very high goals for myself, but I’m 100% confident that I can hit them. I feel 190 [feet] in my future.”
As for McInnes, her performance on Thursday was historic, though on a smaller scale. The Bayport-Blue Point senior won the 800 in 2 minutes, 7.17 seconds. Later, she earned a gold medal in the 1,500 in 4:33.24. Those two times were meet records.
The previous record-holder in each event? McInnes.
Her 800 time was 10.24 seconds faster than her original record-breaking time last year (2:17.41), and her 1,500 time was 14.63 seconds faster than her 2022 mark (4:47.87).
The new 800 time is the fastest of any girl in a Suffolk championship meet across all class sizes.
“It feels great knowing that I’ve come all this way,” McInnes said. “I get to graduate and leave a legacy just like I wanted. It’s going to help people that are younger who will look up to me.”
McInnes also ran the leadoff leg of Bayport-Blue Point’s championship-winning 4 x 800 relay team, preceding freshmen Isabella Klein and Charlotte Johnson and junior Emma Caliendo. They finished in 10:08.34.
Phantoms senior Julianna Primavera won the 1,500 walk in 8:22.09 and freshman Layla Quirke cleared 4-8 to take the high jump.
Mount Sinai won the team championship, finishing with 141 points. Senior Kelly Hughes led the way, winning both the 400 hurdles (1:06.51) and triple jump (35-2 1⁄4). She also ran the third leg of Mount Sinai’s victorious 4 x 400 team that finished in 4:09.5, behind senior Cameron Campo and eighth-grader Adetola Gold.
Freshman Cali Gabrielson, who won the 3,000 in 10:35.49, anchored the 4 x 400 squad. Campo also won the 400 in 58.83.
Hughes originally had dreams of being a soccer player, but her mother made her join the track team in eighth grade. It was not until the St. Anthony’s Invitational in 2023, when she shared a hug with coach Bill Dwyer after running a personal record in the 400, that she fell in love with the sport.
Now, as a multiple county champion, and an Alabama commit, Hughes is thankful she chose track.
“I couldn’t imagine when I started that this is where I would end up,” Hughes said. “If you told me that this is what my life [would be] when I was younger, I probably would’ve laughed at you. Everything I have, I owe it all to Dwyer.”
Port Jefferson junior Alexa Jacobs won the 100 and 200 for the second consecutive year, sprinting 11.9 and 24.77 seconds, respectively. Her initial seed time for the 200 was nine-hundredths of a second behind Center Moriches junior Laila Cole, who finished second in 25.52.
“I always love having great competition,” Jacobs said. “Laila is such a good runner. I knew it was going to be a hard race, and I liked the fact that I was kind of the underdog in it, because it gave me something harder to work for.”
Center Moriches did get a county champion in junior Emma Gold, who won the 2,000 steeplechase in 7:39.21.
Mattituck sophomore Ever Meyer scored 2,133 points to win the pentathlon.
Southold/Greenport had a pair of champions, with Greenport High School freshman Ida Reiniger winning the 100 hurdles in 16.44 and Greenport sophomore Devin Stanton claiming the long jump by flying 16-3.
Glenn seniors Emelia Maletta and Azn Pineda, junior Erika Hartough and sophomore Morgan Hepburn won the 4 x 100 relay in 51.5 seconds.
Elsewhere in the field events, Miller Place sophomore Shayna Selnick cleared 10-3 to win the pole vault.
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.
