First, Saturday’s news:
B-CC girls won the county meet, the first such top finish in Coach Chad Young’s seven years running the team. They narrowly edged arch-rival and reigning state champ Whitman.
B-CC boys finished fourth out of 25 teams, a high point so far in a season that has dazzled observers. In preseason, a MoCoRunning.com poll didn’t list the team in the top 10 in the county, and a poll just a week ago put them as the No. 10 team.
In the girls’ race, the drama started early. Young decided that Junior Laura Nakasaka should sit out the race due to a lingering shin injury. That sidelined B-CC’s No. 2 runner and, Young said, considerably lessened B-CC’s chances to win.
“The girls didn’t worry so much about Whitman,” he said. “They just ran their own race.”
Senior Ava Farrell shot out with the lead pack. Freshmen Nora McUmber and Kat McNeill were in roughly 20th place at the first mile. Behind them: senior Hallie Jester, freshman Abby Fry, junior Carolina Leuba, and senior Claire Cohen.
Farrell started to slowly drop back from the lead pack. McUmber picked it up, lengthening her stride and passing Farrell about 2.5 miles into the 3.1 mile race. McUmber finished fifth overall in 19 minutes, 18 seconds, a PR. Farrell was right behind her, in 19:28, her fastest time of the year, for seventh. McNeill was next in 19:40, a PR, for 10th.
Then came Jester, the senior who is running cross country for the first time.
Six hundred yards from the finish, Young yelled out to her as she passed, “Catch that pack ahead! Give it a shot!”
A pack of four runners were 15 to 20 yards ahead of her. Jester picked up the pace, passing two Whitman runners in the pack, and finished in 12th place overall, in 19:48. The Whitman runners finished in 14th and 16th place. B-CC ended up winning by five points, meaning that Jester’s kick was a difference maker.
“The race came down to Hallie’s final kick,” Young said. “She was so determined to catch the girls. She hunted them down, passing enough girls to make the difference in the meet.”
Still, he added, “it’s a team race and everybody ran really well.”
Fry finished in 21st place, in 20:12. It was the first time in Young’s seven years of coaching that four girls had finished under 20 minutes. Her finish also meant that three of B-CC’s top five finishers are freshmen. Finishing sixth was Leuba in 21:20 for 47th overall, while Cohen finished in 21:52 for 66th-place.
In the boys’ race, all seven runners ran PRs.
The team’s top three runners – sophomores Alex Riishojgaard and Peter Horton and junior Nick McGreivy – started strongly. Riishojgaard went through the first mile in about 20th place, and gradually picked up his pace, finishing in 9th place overall in 16:24, or 47 seconds faster than his PR. It was the fifth fastest time registered by a B-CC runner in Young’s seven years as coach.
Second was Horton, finishing in 16:46, for 20th; that time was the eighth fastest time in Young’s tenure. McGreivy came in 34th place, in 17:10.
Next were sophomore Nolan Ebner in 17:20 for 42nd overall; freshman Sam Baker in 17:30 for 51st; senior Aidan Hennessey in 64th place, 17:43; and sophomore Matt Boden in 18:04, for 83rd place.
The next race will be the 4A West regionals competition on Nov. 3. Qualifying teams will then go to the state championship.
Young will select 10 to 12 from both the boys and girls teams to continue training for the regionals (although just seven will race). For the rest of the team, it is time for a well-deserved break.
Tomorrow: Look for an account of the JV races at the county championship.
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