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.
No comments:
Post a Comment