With sprint at end, Riishojgaard wins

Alex Riishojgaard had a frustrating start to his cross-country season at B-CC. The sophomore had joint pain and had little energy for a couple of weeks. Doctors cleared him to run just eight days ago.

On Tuesday, in his second race, Riishojgaard (at right) won his first meet in his high school career, beating a three-high-school field in 17 minutes, 11 seconds. The other schools were host Damascus and Richard Montgomery.

Riishojgaard ran with two other top B-CC runners – sophomore Peter Horton and junior Nick McGreivy -- in a lead pack for much of the race and then took a large lead. Toward the end, a few runners challenged him, but Riishojgaard outsprinted them to the finish. Horton finished fourth, just three seconds back, in 17:14, while McGreivy (shown below) finished fifth in 17:32. All three ran a PR.

“Alex really broke out today,” said Coach Chad Young. “It was the highlight of the boys’ meet. Not only was it a win, but it was an impressive sprint at the end. It was fun to watch.”

Richard Montgomery edged the B-CC boys team by only three points, while B-CC finished ahead of Damascus.

Sophomore Nolan Ebner finished four on the team (12th overall in 18:05), senior Aidan Hennessey was fifth (18:14), followed by another pack of boys who finished impressively under 18:30: sophomore Matt Boden, junior Greg Picard, and freshman Sam Baker.

“The B-CC boys showed a little bit of depth today,” Young said. “It was a great day for us. They weren’t scared of their competition by any means. They were very aggressive. It was our best race of the year.”

B-CC’s girls handily won their meet even without top runners senior Ava Farrell and junior Laura Nakasaka. Both were held back because of nagging injuries.

Finishing first for B-CC was freshman Nora McUmber (third overall in 20:12), followed by senior Hallie Jester (fourth, 20:14), freshman Kat McNeill (sixth, 20:24); freshman Abby Fry (seventh, 20:25); junior Caroline Leuba (eighth, 20:56); junior Emily Hardgrove (10th, 21:21); and freshman Annie McElvein, (11th, 21:23).

Young’s take:

“Nora started way back, really slow, and as coaches we worried she was too far back. But even as a freshman, she knows what she is doing so well and gradually made her way up and wound up being toward the front. Hallie Jester, to me, she ran the race of the day for the girls. She and Caroline Leuba (above center) both sensed a feeling of responsibility as the race started. Caroline went out hard, and made sure that B-CC’s presence was known. She faded a little, but still finished eighth. Hallie (below left) came on strong toward the middle of the race and was very aggressive with a great kick to the finish line.”

After McNeill was Fry, competing in just her second race. “She was out for two weeks with hip pain and had done a few workouts,” Young said. “This was the first race she felt no pain. She can run for real. She’s a big help to B-CC’s team. She’s right there with the top freshmen on the team already. As the season progresses, as we figure out the identity of this team, Abby may be one of those girls who end up on varsity by the end of the season.”

Four freshmen finished in the top seven. The fourth was McElvein.

“I was talking to other coaches today about how when it comes to invitational meets choosing the top seven is not easy when you have freshmen who are start figuring things out,” Young said. “You don’t know how they will react. The other coaches were saying to me, ‘That’s a nice problem to have.’ It’s true. The girls are definitely in good shape as far as their depth goes. Now we need to make sure that they compete with the higher-end runners. That’s the tough part. If we can do that, we will be hard to beat.”

The next meet is Friday for varsity only at Paul Short Invite at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa. Ten boys and 10 girls will compete.

At Bull Run, B-CC teams serve notice

At the Bull Run Invitational in northern Baltimore County on Saturday, one of the toughest courses in the state, B-CC’s girls and boys team both finished near the top.

The girls came in third out of 18 teams, the boys sixth out of 24.

The top finisher for either team was a freshman, Nora McUmber, who was eighth overall in the elite girls race in 20 minutes, 49 seconds. Coach Chad Young was impressed with her race as well as the depth of the entire team.

“Nora showed the state of Maryland who she is at this meet,” Young said. “She went out conservatively, slowly. She was way back but she gradually kept picking people off the entire race. It was really fun to watch.”

He said the girls’ team competed really well. The next four finishers were junior Laura Nakasaka (14th overall, 21:10); senior Ava Farrell (21st, 21:31); freshman Kat McNeill (30th, 21:50); and senior Hallie Jester (37th, 22:04).

Severna Park and Chantilly were the two top girls teams with 94 and 107 points, respectively. B-CC finished with 110. “It was really tight,” Young said. “It was a great showing at this time of the season. It’s really fun to have two freshmen so far to have the experience of being on the varsity team.”

Young also singled out Jester, who is running cross-country for the first time this year; she had run track for her first three years in high school. “Hallie had a really good day. She was really competitive,” he said. “The reason our team placed so well is that our fifth girl, Hallie, was in front of a lot of teams’ fifth girl. Things are going really well for her. She’s really improving in her races.”

In the varsity boy’s race, Young said he saw a big improvement at Bull Run.

“For our boys this was our best showing of the season so far,” he said. “The guys ran well and also we got one of our injured runners back,” Alex Riishojgaard, a sophomore.

Finishing first for the B-CC boys in the “large schools” race was sophomore Peter Horton (20th overall, 18:10), followed by Riishojgaard (25th, 18:24); junior Nick McGreivy (29th, 18:28); sophomore Nolan Ebner (41st, 18:54); and sophomore Matt Boden (61st, 19:19).

The time gap between the first and fourth runners, Young noted, was 44 seconds, “which is really great. A lot of teams are struggling to get a tight pack that we are fortunate to have. We just need that pack to improve as the season goes along.

“I was really proud of them,” Young said. “They are still finding out who they are because they are so young. They are starting to run with some confidence.”

In the JV races, the meet organizers did not score the competition so it was not possible to learn the teams’ finishes. But several individuals did well.

On the girls’ team, Young noted senior Claire Cohen (21:19), “who is fighting for a varsity spot;” and freshman Annie McElvein, in her first real meet of the year who started far back and fought her way to second on the team.

On the boys’ team, the top finishers were Dylan Johnson (20:52); junior Jacob Bennett; and sophomore Sam Hainbach. Nine freshmen boys ran in the meet. “They got a chance to run on one of the hardest courses in the state,” Young said. “It was a good way to learn how tough they are. Those guys were using a ton of effort on this course.”

The next meet is Tuesday at Damascus in a three high school competition; Richard Montgomery also will be competing. The meet starts at 3:30 p.m.

Girls win in dominant performance

B-CC girls’ cross country team went 1-2 Tuesday against Poolesville in its lone home meet of the year.

Then it went 4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13.

The girls took 12 of the first 13 places to beat Poolesville, a performance that Coach Chad Young said “was a confidence builder in some ways.”

Or, perhaps in many ways.

The boys’ cross country team didn’t fare as well, losing to Poolesville, which took the top three spots.

In the girls’ race, senior Ava Farrell won in 19 minutes, 53 seconds, followed by junior Laura Nakasaka in 20:01. Farrell rebounded from the Whitman meet last week in which she injured her foot. “She had no foot trouble at this race and she finished where she usually finishes – in first,” Young said.

The rest of the varsity squad (top seven finishers) were in order freshmen Nora McUmber and Kat McNeill; senior Hallie Jester; junior Caroline Leuba; and sophomore Angie Peterson. In all, 10 girls finished the three-mile course in less than 22 minutes.

“This was the fastest meet we’ve had this year by far,” said Young. “This meet helped us remember that most of the teams out there aren’t going to beat us, even if they have a good day. Now we have to make sure we mentally prepare ourselves for the tough part of the season ahead.”

Young said many runners did well in the meet, mentioning Peterson (below, No. 352) as a good example. Last year, as a freshman, she ran 24:04; on Tuesday her time was 21:18.

“She worked hard over the summer, and worked hard last year as a freshman,” Young said. “She has done a great job in figuring things out, and she’s become a leader on the team, even as a sophomore.”

In the boys’ race, the top finishers were sophomore Peter Horton and junior Nick McGreivy, who finished 4-5 overall. Sophomore Nolan Ebner was the third B-CC finisher (eighth overall), followed by senior Aidan Hennessey, sophomore Matt Boden, freshman Sam Baker, and junior Jacob Bennett.

With two of B-CC’s top boy runners sidelined by injuries, Young said there was opportunity for others to make the varsity squad. “The top guys have to break up the pack to give us a chance to win, and the guys who are normally 7-8-9 are now on varsity team and have to outrun the varsity runners on the other team,” Young said.

“They have to be less worried about making a PR, or the time they run, and be more worried about who they are running next to.”

Young praised Horton and McGreivy for again leading the team, and he said the others also competed well. Many set personal records. One was Boden, who finished in 18:33, nearly two minutes faster than his time a week before. Another was Bennett (right, No. 821), who ran track for the first time last year. He finished in 19:13, a PR by nearly three minutes.

“He’s a naturally talented runner and with a little more racing experience he will see a lot of improvement,” Young said of Bennett. “This could be a breakout race for him.”

At the end of the meet, the team’s juniors led a ceremony to honor the seniors on the squad.

For the girls, the seniors are: Claire Cohen, Susannah Derr, Ava Farrell, Claire Galasso, Lilly Herrick-Reynolds, Hallie Jester, Alison Thomas, and Molly Zinkgraf.

For the boys: Brad Connell; Ethan Ebinger, Aidan Hennessey, Alessandro Lallas, and Schuyler Parsonnet.

The next meet will be Saturday at the Bull Run Invitational Cross Country Meet at Hereford High School in rural northern Baltimore County. The course is noted as one of the most challenging cross country courses around, with hills, twists, turns, and a ravine called “The Dip.”

The race is divided into competitions according to school size and team ability. B-CC girls will compete in the elite race; the boys will run in the “large school” race. The day also features junior varsity runs. All B-CC runners can compete.

“We’ll get a real taste of the competition in the state and see how we stack up,” Young said.

First meet: A photo blog

'I was just fired up today'

No one knew what to expect from Nora McUmber.

The freshman B-CC cross-country runner had finished second on the team in one preseason scrimmage and then in the middle of the pack in a second scrimmage.

But in Wednesday’s first meet, against arch-rival Whitman High School, McUmber started out conservatively and then picked up the pace to finish second on the team, sixth overall, as one of the pleasant surprises for B-CC coaches Chad Young and Emily Young.

Overall, Whitman’s boys and girls won the meet handily. The Whitman boys scored 23 points to B-CC’s 36, while Whitman’s girls scored 20 points to B-CC’s 37. (Scoring is done by adding a team’s top five finishers and the winner has the fewest points; B-CC boys finished 2-3-8-11-12, and B-CC’s girls finished 4-6-7-8-12.)

While the final scores were disappointing to the coaches, they also saw many reasons to be optimistic for the season.

Among several strong performers were two girl freshmen, McUmber and Kat McNeill.
One pundit has already called them the McFreshmen of B-CC. McNeill finished third on the team, seventh overall, in 22 minutes, nine seconds. McUmber finished in 21:55. The top B-CC finisher was junior Laura Nakasaka in 21:23, good for fourth overall.

“It was really exciting to see those two freshmen girls step it up,” Chad Young said. “For most of the race, they were behind Whitman’s fifth runner, but then they closed the gap and went right past her. It was so much fun to watch them run.”

Before the race, McUmber said that Emily Young told her to stay focused and run hard. She said it helped.

“What Emily said really motivated me to try to do my best for the team,” McUmber said. “I was just fired up today. I had some Powerade before the race, and got pumped up.”

McNeill said she also became excited by another pre-race moment: “A group of freshmen runners came together, we talked and got pumped up,” she said. “The race went well. I started out slower than a previous meet and it worked well for me because I could run faster later.”

In the girls’ race, three senior Whitman runners and two B-CC runners – senior Ava Farrell and Nakasaka, a junior – broke out to a large lead for roughly half of the 5K course.

But Farrell, one of the top runners in the state, started slowing considerably halfway through, which immediately concerned Chad Young because of Farrell’s consistent high performance level. It turned out that Farrell had hurt her foot. She gutted out the race and finished eighth overall in 22:15. After she crossed the finish line, she crumpled to the ground and was helped to her feet.

“You could tell something was definitely wrong with her during the race,” Young said. “She wound up being very tough to even finish.”

He said Nakasaka ran extremely well. “She hung with the senior top runners at Whitman. She was not intimidated at all by them,” he said. Whitman’s girls are reigning state champs.

Finishing fifth on the B-CC’s girls team was junior Emily Hardgrove. Young said her performance was one of the highlights of the meet for him. She finished in 23:16.

“If you look at the summer mileage charts, she ran all the miles and gradually built up as she was supposed to,” he said. “It’s great to see the hard work start to pay off. It’s very, very impressive.”

In the boys’ race, junior Nick McGreivy (18:52) and sophomore Peter Horton (18:59) finished in second and third places overall, respectively. “They ran really well, a great race,” Young said. “Both were smart, very steady, very aggressive, and very competitive.”

The team started off with a handicap: Two of its top runners, junior Thomas Horton and sophomore Alex Riishojgaard, could not run because of injuries. It meant B-CC had little chance of beating a deep Whitman team, but it also opened the door for other runners to finish on the varsity team, the top five spots.

The next finishers were: sophomore Nolan Ebner (19:54); junior Greg Picard (20:17); sophomore Matthew Boden; senior Aidan Hennessey (20:24); and freshman Sam Baker (20:31).

Young gave special mention to Ebner. “He finished in eighth, but was 11th for much of the race, and gradually worked his way up to a scoring position,” he said. “He’s come along pretty strong for a couple of weeks. He’s in shape and really interested being part of the varsity team. He’s an important piece of our team if we are going to be successful.”

Two big events are coming up.

The first is the C&O Canal 5K at Meadowbrook Park (Candy Cane City) this Sunday at 8 a.m. Junior Greg Picard is organizing the race, and Young said he will be encouraging the teams to run it. The race fees will help repair and preserve the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park. Picard has a great tag line for the race: “Run 3.1 miles, preserve 184.5!” Here’s a link to learn more or register.

Next Tuesday is B-CC’s only home meet, also held at Meadowbrook Park. The first race starts at 3:30 p.m.

B-CC cross country team hopes for fast start

Welcome to the blog for the 2011 B-CC’s cross-country team. We’ve covered indoor and outdoor track for the past two seasons. This is new terrain, even if with some familiar characters.

The first meet will be Wednesday at Whitman. More on that in a minute.

Coach Chad Young returns for his seventh year as head coach of the team. His long-time co-coach, Nathan Herchenroeder, is now on a two-year teaching contract in Paris. “The kids really loved him,” Young said. “We’ll miss him, but so far he’s really enjoying himself in Paris.”

No doubt.

Taking his place as coach is Emily Young (shown in the center of the picture at left), a former runner at the University of North Carolina who also coached track for B-CC runners three years ago; some of the senior girls on the cross-country team had her as coach when they were freshmen. For the last two years, she has coached runners at a West Virginia boarding school.

Chad Young already sees Emily’s impact: “She has done a great job in bringing toughness to the girls’ team, early on in the season,” he said. “It’s good to have a female coach to get a little more out of them, and she has already helped change the mentality.”

On Wednesday, Chad Young believes he will see several strong performances. He also expects surprises from a very deep girls’ team and a wide-open boys’ team that has 18 freshmen runners (double the number of girl freshmen on the team).

“We have a solid group of freshmen again this year,” he said. “In the past, we’ve had groups of girl freshmen come in a large pack. This year, we have this huge pack of freshman boys. Eighteen boys is a ton for us. They all have a really good attitude and they are all excited to start the season.”

He said Friday’s cancellation of a meet was a letdown; it was the only one of the year that featured just a freshmen race. Still, Young expects both boy and girl freshmen to have an impact on the varsity teams. The varsity squad, in many races, consists of the seven top runners.

For the boy freshmen, Young said that Sam Baker has posted the fastest times so far, followed by Wyatt Donnelly and Reed Crosson. Another promising newcomer is senior Alessandro Lallas.

For the girl freshman, Kat McNeill has already challenged some of the top upperclassmen in scrimmages, followed by Abby Fry and Nora McUmber.

“For the freshmen, it’s new to them,” Young said. “It’s not just going out and running 3.1 miles. It’s how they mentally prepare to go through this. It’s easy to run the first mile and easy to have a finishing kick, but what you do in between is really important.”

The boys’ team has just one of the top seven runners returning: Nick McGreivy. “The door is wide open, not for only sophomores, juniors, and a couple of seniors, but also for the freshmen. We don’t know what the varsity squad will look like by the end of the year,” he said.

At this point, Young said the top two runners appear to be McGreivy and sophomore Peter Horton (see in photo, McGreivy just ahead of Horton). The boys’ captains are all juniors: McGreivy, Thomas Horton, and Greg Picard.

The girls’ team, which returns its top 13 runners from last year, should be one of the top teams in the state, Young said.

“The top 13 are very talented, very competitive, and this year, the pack of girls has tightened up a lot,” he said. “Someone 10th on the team last year could be second or third this year because there are so many girls ready to step up and compete even within the team.”

Leading the way are seniors Ava Farrell, one of the top cross-country runners in the state, and Laura Nakasaka (in picture, Farrell is rear right and Nakasaka rear left). “Laura has really separated herself from the rest of the girls so far, and she and Ava could go one-two for the season,” Young said.

The girls’ captains are seniors Farrell and Susannah Derr.

Wednesday’s meet will be a good marker for them. Whitman High’s girls’ team is the reigning state champion, and it is returning most of its top runners. “On paper, everything looks like Whitman should be better than B-CC,” Young said. “Our girls will learn how they will fare this season even as early as Wednesday at Whitman. It will be a good test.”

The girls’ start will be at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday at Whitman (the course is on the high school grounds), while the boys’ start will be around 4:15 p.m.

One last note: Please feel free to add comments to this blog. We’d especially like to get the perspectives of the runners themselves about what they see as important moments during the year.