Education

North Fork NJROTC wins Long Island drill meet

For the third time, the North Fork Navy Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps unit has claimed first place at the annual Long Island drill meet.      

Major Bill Grigonis, who runs the local program, attributed Saturday’s victory at Mattituck High School to the amount of hard work contributed by each of the cadets.

“Between meeting with the academic team, studying and having meetings at night, it was definitely hard work on everyone’s part,” he said in an interview Monday.

The North Fork unit, which is made up of students from all three Southold Town high schools, finished ahead of second place Riverhead and third place William Floyd.

“Riverhead is always a tough team to beat,” Major Grigonis said of the runner up.

The North Fork NJROTC program was founded in 1973 and now consists of more than 300 students.

Below are some of the individual awards earned by North Fork students Saturday:

1st Place – Academic Team – Commander Joe Stuckart

1st Place – Individual Academics – Rob Kruszeski

1st Place – Inspection Team – Commander Ally Peters

1st Place – Armed Basic Drill – Commander Katherine Jarvis

1st Place – Athletics – Commander Larysa Andreadis

1st Place – Individual Athletics (Iron Man) – Justin Lake

1st Place – Color Guard – Commander Jaime Gaffga

3rd Place – Unarmed Exhibition – Commander Chris Dolce

3rd Place – Knockout – Gage Bennett