Alvarez keeps hurdling tradition at Passaic Valley strong by Paul Schwartz of The Record
HACKENSACK — There’s a pride to hurdling that infuses the Passaic Valley track and field program.
Over the last decade, boys such as Joe Lewicki and A.J. Esguerra, and girls such as Cathryn Cole, Melissa Pascual, Rebecca Leonardo and Julie Goldberg have had great success in league, county and state sectional competition indoors at 55 meters and outdoors at 100 (girls) and 110 meters (boys).
The latest Hornet hurdler is senior Erick Alvarez, who won the 55 hurdles Friday night at the Tom Zaccone Invitational at the Rothman Center.
Alvarez avenged his early season loss to Northern Valley/Demarest standout Andrew Peterson, and was clocked in 8.1, with Peterson third behind Dan Monchek of Northern Highlands in what could be a preview of the North 1, group 3 sectional in five weeks.
“The upperclassmen always help the newcomers with the hurdles and everyone starts track wanting to hurdle here,” said Alvarez, who was fifth in the outdoor group 3 sectionals and is the top returning athlete in the event. “It’s something we all want to do because the coaches make it so interesting for us.”
Alvarez, has become a real student of the event, spending an hour of his daily winter track workout, doing a series of drills designed to improve his form in the highly technical event.
“First we set up the hurdles and walk through the event, stepping over each hurdle to get ourselves really stretched out,” said Alvarez, who hopes to run at either Bucknell, East Stroudsberg State, Misercordia or Allegheny next year, all Pennsylvania schools. “Then we pull the hurdles and put them against a wall in the hallway and do drills to improve snapping with our lead leg and pulling through our trail leg.”
“Finally we set the hurdles up again but only the first hurdle is in its right spot. The others are two feet closer than normal so we have make sure we don’t get lazy and get over each hurdle.”
Then Alvarez goes home, eats, does his homework and them studies film of his practices, some races and races of other hurdlers, trying to refine his technique.
“I really like to watch Cory Poole (the defending state champ from East Orange, who is the top-ranked hurdler in the country) because he’s just so good and I’m trying to get better.”
Rutherford junior Danny Sullivan is also following a tradition at Rutherford, but this one is more personal than that of Alvarez.
He won the 1,000 meters easily Friday (although a timing malfunction prevented an official winning time), his first win in an event that siblings Katie (now a junior at Haverford) and Sean (now a freshman at Boston College) dominated during their high school careers.
“I have to keep up the family tradition,” said Danny, who will run the 800 and 1,600 and take a leg on the 4-x-400 relay Monday at the NJIC Championships. “Sean and most of the rest of last year’s team came tonight and really inspired me.”
Sullivan, like his siblings played soccer as a freshman, and began to run outdoor track but wasn’t sure of his future until late in his freshman spring.
“I was hurt and I was helping out at the long jump pit, and a teammate pointed to Sean and said, ‘you can be as good as your brother’ and that did it for me. I decided that was it for me and committed to run full time.”