{"id":97476,"date":"2026-01-12T17:27:30","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T17:27:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/97476\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T17:27:30","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T17:27:30","slug":"staten-islander-leads-hs-relay-quartet-to-u-s-no-1-national-ranking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/97476\/","title":{"rendered":"Staten Islander leads HS relay quartet to U.S. No. 1 national ranking"},"content":{"rendered":"

BOSTON, M.A.\u2014 Staten Islander Jayden Falcon and his Xavier High School teammates shipped up to Boston this past weekend and delivered in a big way at the TRACK at New Balance, as the Knights\u2019 distance medley relay posted<\/a> the current U.S. No. 1 time of 10:21.58.<\/p>\n

The senior distance runner highlighted the big performance with a blazing 4:16 mile split on the anchor leg, in addition to running an individual U.S. No. 11 mark of 2:30.79 in the 1,000 meters just two hours prior, amounting to a fantastic day for the borough standout.<\/p>\n

Falcon, who resides in West Brighton after moving to Staten Island from Carroll Gardens in Brooklyn prior to his freshman year at Xavier, credits his demanding daily commute into Manhattan\u2014and the long trips home from training sites in the Upper West Side and Washington Heights\u2014for instilling his commitment to the hard work that comes with being a high-caliber track athlete.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn long days at Central Park or The Armory, it\u2019s about an hour just to get back to the ferry. I think you get used to it. Track is a grind, and this kind of adds to it\u2014it prepares you for long days. Even when we went to Boston, the trip was long for everyone, but being from Staten Island got me a little more ready for it,” he shared.<\/p>\n

He also shared that even when training at home during breaks or on weekends, the borough provides the perfect backdrop for high-level preparation.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver break, I went to Silver Lake a lot to do runs, and Ocean Breeze is pretty close too\u2014I have a membership there, so I go if I need track workouts. I can get long runs done at Silver Lake; it\u2019s about a mile-and-a-half loop. If I\u2019m doing a long run, I\u2019ll do it maybe seven times, and if it\u2019s a shorter run, maybe four loops to get around six miles,” he explained.<\/p>\n

Xavier head coach Patrick Dormer also credited Falcon\u2019s work ethic to his Island roots, saying, \u201cOne of the best things about Jayden is how he handles a long commute to school and then to practice and then home every day. He is mature enough to balance the demands of being a student at Xavier and one of the best distance runners in the city.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJayden has been very committed to sticking to the plan and not panicking when things go wrong. He is able to handle disappointment and stay focused; his sense of humor and ability to laugh at himself make him a great leader on the team,\u201d Dormer continued.<\/p>\n

As for assessing his own monster day in Boston and his hot start to the season, Falcon said, \u201cI think a lot of it has to do with my confidence and my trust in my coach, Mr. Dormer. He knows what he\u2019s doing, so I just follow the plan, and it\u2019s been working. I\u2019ve PR\u2019d almost every meet, and a lot of the other guys have too. It\u2019s a testament to how much he knows and how much we trust the process.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think a lot of it also has to do with the team culture. When one of us does well, the whole team does well\u2014especially in relays, but even in individual races. Seeing a teammate perform well motivates me and pushes me to want to run better,” he continued.<\/p>\n

Lastly, while it\u2019s still early in the season, Falcon said that performances like this have given the Knights confidence that they could compete for a national championship, noting, \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of belief right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think a lot of teams doubted us coming into the season because we had a lot of guys graduate, but I think we proved a lot of them wrong. Competing for a national championship might sound crazy, but we ran that DMR without fresh legs\u2014we came to Boston the day before, I had just run the 1K, and the rest of the relay team had run the 1K too and dropped some nice times.”<\/p>\n

\u201cTo come back two hours later and run a U.S. No. 1 DMR says a lot. I know I can run faster, and I\u2019m pretty sure the rest of the team can drop their times too. We\u2019re at 10:21 right now, and if we can shave a few seconds here and there, anything\u2019s possible,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BOSTON, M.A.\u2014 Staten Islander Jayden Falcon and his Xavier High School teammates shipped up to Boston this past…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":97477,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":{"0":"post-97476","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-staten-island","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-staten-island","12":"tag-staten-island-headlines","13":"tag-staten-island-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}