NSHS v Acton Boxborough

Report from the girl's race by Steven McChesney:

Newton South vs Acton-Boxborough

Nara Park, Acton  2.8 Miles  10/3/12   

Newton South Girls improve to 5 - 2.

Today I felt like our entire team had a great approach to competing as we beat a good Acton-Boxborough team today by the score of 24 - 32.   This was a meaningful win as AB is a top 20 team in Division I and very well could be a team that will make it out of the Division championship and make it into All State.  I have a lot of respect for the program that coach Lisa Owen has kept at a high level each year and I knew that we would need good races throughout our line up to win and that is what we got.  Lisa told me that her kids ran an improved race and she was encouraged with their progress. Our kids ran a forward kind of race for the win.

Christine Davis who is tearing up the state had the win in a course record of 16:24.  I decided going into the meet that it was more important for future team success to have freshman Rebecca Grusby  and junior Lucrecia Aguilar work with junior Anna Rhatigan to get her back into racing after being sick for 6 days.  They did a great job of following our plan to stick together while picking up places 2-4. Lucrecia was 2nd in 17:35,  Rebecca was 3rd in 17:36 and Anna looks back to form taking 4th in 17:39.  The most encouraging point in this race was that we had our scoring top 5 all placed within a minute of each other and that is good for our future in big meets.  Our top 3 ran fast enough that our 1-5 spread is doing what we hope for at this point in the season.  Junior Margalit Glasgow looked very strong as our 4th runner placing 7th in 18:27 and sophomore Matia Whiting ran a strong race staying with her in placing 8th in 18:31. Both Margalit and Matia ran races that showed that they understood their role in having our 4th and 5th mixing it up with the top 3 of AB and they both ran races that helped the team today.  Junior Lizzie Fineman was our 6th today and she has really learned a lot in a short time and was able to add a point to AB’s score by beating their 5th runner in placing 10th in 18:42.   

Junior Yasmine Hashemi has been consistent and placed 13th in 18:51.

She ran about where our 5th runners have been running all year so that is a good effort.

Team captain senior Emily Caggiano missed our workout on Monday due to being sick, but she showed a lot of courage racing today.  I would have preferred to rest her and let her get back to full strength, but Emily felt that she needed to be in the race to help lead the team.  We really benefitted by having her in the line up and she finished 15th in 19:06.

Junior Sara Wang ran well placing 16th in 19:09 followed closely by senior team captain Leah Abercrombie in 17th in 19:27.  I am proud of the day all through our line up.

Our JV race was another story of improvement and I really like what I saw from this team.  Just before the meet I decided to rest three of our JV runners for illness and little things that we do not want to make worse at this point.  So I was really interested in seeing how so many new kids would respond.  Our improvement was incredible as we placed 4 girls in the top 5.

Freshman Caraline Pham led the entire race and won in 19:38.  Sophomore Caroline Delheim has improved a great deal in the last couple of dual meets and she came from a ways back running the first part of the race in 3rd and came storming into the finish to place 2nd right behind Caraline in 19:41.  Junior Leah Jacobson ran the same come from behind style of race to take 3rd in 20:01.  I consider a time near 20:00 minutes on this course to be a varsity effort.

Sophomore Louisa Kimmell had a huge improvement to take 5th in 20:22.

Her improvement from last year to this time is jaw dropping. She was a stellar 4th runner for us today.  Freshman Amelia Stern not only got to close out the scoring as our 5th runner today she was also able to beat the 5th from AB placing 9th in 21:41. It was nice that she could give our JV team the help that they needed today.  Sophomore Amy Gilbert continues to have a great season placing 11th in 23:38.  

I think the improvement of the meet goes to Freshman Ksenia Potapov as she improved by 4 minutes when you consider the length of the course.

Newton South vs Acton Boxborough

Nara Park,  10/3/12   2.8 miles     Wet with no wind  

Varsity Results

1. C. Davis AB 16:24  Course Record   Old Record 17:03

2. L. Aguilar NSXC 17:35

3. R. Grusby NSXC 17:36

4. A. Rhatigan NSXC 17:39

5. B. Blackshaw AB 18:06

6. M Nero AB 18:12

7. M. Glasgow NSXC 18:27

8. M. Whiting NSXC 18:31

9. A. Malloy AB 18:37

10. L. Fineman NSXC 18:42

11. S. Flynn AB 18:46

12. J. Campo AB 18:47

13. Y. Hashemi NSXC 18:51

14. R. Davidson AB 18:52

15. E. Caggiano  NSXC 19:06

16. S. Wang NSXC 19:09

17. L. Abercrombie NSXC 19:27

18. K. Gross AB 19:33

19. J. Jiang AB 19:41

20. B. Mullen AB 19:48

21. C Duquet AB 20:27

NS 2 3 4 7 8 = 24

AB 1 5 6 9 11 = 32

JV Results

1. C. Pham NSXC 19:38

2. C. Delheim NSXC 19:41

3. L. Jacobson NSXC 20:01

4. A. Jones AB 20:09

5. L. Kimmell NSXC 20:22

6. A. Kazberbouk AB 21:16

7. H. Bluday AB 21:22

8. E. Zhou AB 21:25

9. A. Stern NSXC 21:41

10. J. Wang AB 22:15

11. A. Gilbert NSXC 23:38

12. M. Johnson AB 24:28

13. K. Potapov NSXC 24:29