Girls Winter Track: Riverhead coach to resign after accepting admin position

Justin Cobis, the head coach of the Riverhead girls winter track team, will resign from his position effective Jan. 19 as he leaves the district for an administrative position in the Southampton School District.

Cobis said he accepted an assistant principal position in Southampton. He was currently a social studies teacher at Riverhead High School. The Riverhead Board of Education is scheduled to accept his resignation as both a teacher and coach at Tuesday’s meeting.

Cobis is also the girls varsity cross country coach and the assistant coach in the spring track season. The track and field coaching staff typically splits the duties with Cobis and Maria Dounelis sharing head coaching duties.

Dounelis will take over as the head coach for the remainder of the winter season, Cobis said.

Cobis is in his 13th year teaching at Riverhead, the same district where he graduated. He said balancing his coaching duties over the three different seasons with his home life and two young kids, Jackson and Zoe, was becoming challenging.

“It still hasn’t hit me,” he said of the upcoming change.

This past fall was one of the best seasons for Riverhead’s cross country team. The Blue Waves completed the League II season in a three-way tie for first place. It was the second straight league championship for Riverhead. Two seniors, Megan Kielbasa and Christina Yakaboski, were the team’s top two runners. Yakaboski earned a spot at the state championship meet.

Cobis has been an ambassador of the sport as Riverhead’s head coach, running the Twitter account @RiverheadTrack where he posts results and photos of the boys and girls teams.