Strong team finishes, Jester 'on a mission'

With deep squads of freshmen and sophomores and several seniors stepping up, B-CC’s boys’ and girls’ cross-country teams posted their two top performances of the year in recent days. At the Paul Short invitational at Lehigh University on Friday and at a meet against Magruder on Tuesday, the teams showed major improvement.

On Tuesday, in a meet that included four teams but counted officially only as a Magruder-B-CC matchup, B-CC’s boys beat the other three teams, including Whitman and Damascus. Beating Whitman by a score of 22-34 was particularly significant following Whitman’s easy defeat of a B-CC squad earlier in the season.

At the Magruder meet, sophomore Alex Alex Riishojgaard (17 minutes, 27 seconds), sophomore Peter Horton (17:41), and junior Nick McGreivy (17:49) finished 3-4-5 overall. Right behind them was another pack of runners finishing under 19 minutes: senior Aidan Hennessey (18:05); sophomore Nolan Ebner (18:06); freshman Sam Baker (18:38); and sophomore Matt Boden (18:55).

In the top seven, four are sophomores and one a freshman.

The team’s reliance on younger runners “could be part of the reason for the slow start this year,” said Coach Chad Young. “It’s really been impressive how they have improved. These sophomores were freshmen the year before in a team full of seniors and they weren’t asked to step up. Now they know it’s really up to them.”

Young asked the runners on the boys’ team on Wednesday whom they thought had the best race at the meet, and the runners’ consensus wasn’t a sophomore. It was senior Hennessey.

“The first couple of races he went out really hard, and halfway through he realized he had spent himself,” Young said. “As the season has progressed, he has gotten in much better shape. He and Nolan Ebner battled each other the whole race for the fourth spot on the team, and I think running with Nolan really helped him. We are relying on Aidan to do well and he’s stepping up and doing it. The guys were all proud of him.”

In the girls’ race on Tuesday, B-CC beat Magruder and Damascus handily, but lost by a single point to Whitman, 28-27. (Officially, the only competition that counted was the B-CC win over Magruder.) Whitman’s girls, reigning state champs, beat B-CC earlier in the year.

Young said while nothing official was riding on the B-CC-Whitman competition, “deep down you could see they did care how the meet ended up. It was a huge confidence boost for the girls. We’ve improved a lot, and it shows the girls aren’t scared to compete with them. It was a good day for us.”

Senior Ava Farrell won the race in 19:49, taking the lead from the start and keeping it the whole race. “She has had a couple of rough races in a row,” Young said. “But in this race she took off with the lead, and kept strong the entire race.”

In second place overall was senior Hallie Jester (20:21), and Young said she had the race of the meet for the girls.

“She was on a mission,” he said. “She is really determined to be one of the top runners. As a senior, she realizes she has responsibility of being an upperclassman and it’s really important for her to step up and be a leader on the team with her running as well as being a good teammate.”

Three freshmen finished next for B-CC: Nora McUmber (20:28); Abby Fry (21:03); and Kat McNeill (21:24). Following them were junior Caroline Leuba (21:34); sophomore Angie Peterson (21:38); and freshman Annie McElvein (22:28).

Young was impressed with Fry’s race. “Abby had a hip issue for a little while early in the season, but she ran really great yesterday,” he said. “She was neck and neck with two girls from Whitman at the end. She passed one and almost passed the other. We showed a lot of depth and a lot of it is because of the freshmen we have, Kat as well.”

He said that the freshmen girls “have put a little put of pressure on the upperclassmen, but in a good way because it’s going to challenge them and help the team become better.”

At the Paul Short race, the highlight for Young and many of the runners wasn’t necessarily the race itself but the chance to see several former B-CC runners compete in college races over the weekend.

Among the B-CC alumni racing there: Eliot Gerson, a Vassar freshman; Trevor Stephens, a freshman at Juniata College; Darcy O’Connor, a sophomore at St. Joseph’s College; and Kathleen Tatem, a senior at St. Mary’s College.

“It was really fun to see them,” Young said. “It was good to show our runners how running lives on and goes beyond the four years in high school, and can go beyond the four years in college and be a life-long thing. It’s a great thing to encourage them to build a healthy lifestyle.”

For the race, briefly, six girls finished under 21 minutes, finishing 10th out of 82 high school teams: McUmber lead the way, followed by junior Laura Nakasaka; Farrell; Jester; McNeill; Leuba; and Peterson.

For the boys, who finished 24th of 44 teams: Riishojgaard finished first on the team, followed by Horton, McGreivy, Ebner, Hennessey, Baker, and Boden.

The next meet is Tuesday in a six-team competition at Quince Orchard.