DCL girls report from Steven

(See post from 27 Oct. to links for photos and full results).

Report from Steven:

We knew going into the DCL that it would be tough to break into the top 3 teams as DCL has gotten even tougher this year with 4 teams ranked in the top 10 in state divisions. I had told the team that a 4th place finish with a good effort was something that we could be satisfied with, but we were all planning to finish with a high placing.

However the DCL gives out team trophies to only the top 3 teams and somehow we always seem to manage a trophy year after year.  This one was well earned as we finished 3rd behind Lincoln-Sudbury now ranked #1 in Division I state, Concord-Carlisle # 7 in D. I and managed to finish ahead of a Weston team that is ranked 4th in D.II State.

Rebecca Grusby continues what not only is the best freshman seasons in our history, but also a great season by any measure.  The last time the DCL championship was run at LS Andrea Keklak from LS won in 18:17 and our Kathy O Keefe was 2nd in 18:19.  That sort of puts Rebecca’s 2nd place time in 17:57 in perspective.  That was a very fast romp.

Anna Rhatigan finished 10th in a solid 19:17.  Lucrecia Aguilar was struggling with a minor illness and lost places in the last mile, but showed a lot of character and courage by hanging onto 13th place in 19:24.

I keep feeling like we are a more experienced team this year, but in truth this is the first high school cross country season for 4 of our top six runners today in Rebecca, Lizzie, Yasmine and Matia.  So we have learned a great deal and come a long way thanks to our captains and other leaders.

Lizzy Fineman had a great day and her 4th place finish on the team and her 27th place in the meet was a huge boost both on the day and also looking forward.  She followed her race plan in a way that we will need to move on to All State and made us more competitive in the DCL meet.  

Yasmine Hashemi has been very consistent once she learned the sport and she ran another helpful race in placing 33rd to seal a top 3 team finish as our 5th.  Matia Whiting was close behind in 40th in 21:16 with team captain Emily Caggiano running a solid race on her heels in placing 43rd in 21:31.

My feeling is that we ran a good solid team race that represented a good deal of team improvement over the season and we can feel good about the day.

I also know that the girls agree with me that we have more in us.  We will work on a few tactics that got away from a few of our kids and solidify a few higher placings and move on to Ea. Ma. Division I States with a great chance to be one of the top 4 teams out of over 28 that make it on to All States. 

 We did not run Margalit Glasgow who has run in our top 4 at times. With her return to racing this weekend we are a deep team with a number of girls that have stepped up this season.

Sara Wang overcame a start that was not in the top 50 early to take 9th in the JV race in 21:15.  Her ability to keep focused and to move up so far was amazing.  Also running varsity caliber times were Caraline Pham, 15th in 21:32 and Caroline Delheim, 16th in 21:43.  Annika McGraw was 8th in the 9th grade race.

Team Results

1. Lincoln-Sudbury  37

2. Concord-Carlisle  74

3. Newton South    83

4. Weston            102

5. Wesford 130

6. Acton-Boxborough  135

7. Boston Latin    201

8. Bedford           208

9. Wayland        237

10. Waltham    291

NS Varsity

2. Rebecca Grusby  17:57

10. Anna Rhatigan  19:17

13. Lucrecia Aguilar  19:24

27. Lizzie Fineman  20:32

33. Yasmine Hashemi 20:47

40. Matia Whiting  21:16

43. Emily Caggiano 21:31

JV

9. Sara Wang   21:15

15. Caraline Pham  21:32

16. Caroline Delheim  21:43

21. Louisa Kimmell   22:00

22. Leah Jacobson  22:02

31. Sarina Weiss   23:02

55. Amy Gilbert   24:44

57. Audrey Hooker  24:52

9th Grade  3K

8. Annika McGraw   16:46

12. Noosha Aliabadi   17:09

24. Ksenia Polapov   18:55

DCL Championships

Newton South boys varsity were 4th team and the girls were 3rd in the DCL championships held at Lincoln-Sudbury High School Friday afternoon, 26 October.

Full Results Link

Photos by Dave Fineman
fixed link to Aaron's photos:
Photos by Aaron Edelstein
Photos by George
photos added 2 Nov.;
many more to come in this album

Waiting for captain's reports.
Aaron is now hired as blog photographer!

DCL Championships Friday 2pm Lincoln-Sudbury HS

The DCL Championships will be tomorrow, Friday, at Lincoln-Sudbury HS at 2pm.
Here is a report from Ted.

Well it all comes down to this! The DCL Cross Country Championship!!!

Friday Oct. 26 at Lincoln-Sudbury H.S. Start Time: 2:00pm

Newton South, Lincoln-Sudbury, Acton-Boxboro, Concord-Carlisle,

Westford Academy, Wayland, Boston Latin, Bedford, Weston, Waltham.

These teams will toe to the line in competitive championship races of Varsity, JV, and Freshman.

Team, and placements awards to the top athletes in each race will be presented in an after-race award ceremony on the Lincoln-Sudbury field.

Read Highlights Attached

It has been 6 weeks of individual and team competition amongst the school in weekly dual meets,

along with a few invitational xc meets to get their race strategies in check.

In my book, 6 weeks of training towards perfection is the start of discovering newly found talents of speed, physical strengths, and emotional control of true athletes. These fine gentlemen, student-athletes, have now discovered what it takes to accomplish goals that previously in their eyes would not have been possible into something that is now truly realistic. Each one of these Boys have a goal to accomplish on Friday. Be it for the team or for their own personal agenda, whatever they accomplish will have a true reflection on what it's like to be part of something that they have contributed to.

And win or lose it is the self confidence and physical discipline that they received from the experience of the Boys NSXC program.

Schedule

2:00pm- JV Boys

2:30pm- V. Girls

3:00pm- Fr.Boys

3:20pm- Fr. Girls

3:40pm- V. Boys

4:10pm- JV. Girls

Bus will return to Newton South approx. 6:30pm

Report from Steven on Twilight meet

Report from Steven:

Newton South @ Bob McIntyre Twilight Cross Country Invitational

10/13/2012 @ Barnstable Fairgrounds, Falmouth, MA

As a team we had our best meet yet at the Twilight with 6 of our varsity girls setting their season bests and 5 personal records.  Team wide including the 9th grade race and JV race we had 15 personal records which is a great ratio for a single meet.  That was so pleasing on the individual level and it allowed us to take 2nd place out of 17 teams in which 6 teams came in ranked in the top 20 in the All State Division I.  We have solidified our place as one of the best teams in Ma.  We scored 78 points to take 2nd on the placing of 1st Frosh Rebecca Grusby 18:22 PR, 4th junior Lucrecia Aguilar 18:55 PR, 9th junior Anna Rhatigan 19:18, 29th sophomore Matia Whiting 20:29 PR, 35th junior Yasmine Hashemi 20:33 PR, 40th junior Margalit Glasgow 20:49 PR and 41st senior Emily Caggiano

20:52 season best. It is very meaningful to be able to beat so many ranked teams.  This is the kind of effort that we will need to move from the Ea. Ma Championship to make All State. Our front running was impressive and so was our depth.  Our 1 - 8 spread was very nice when you consider that Sara Wang also broke 21:00 in placing 6th in the JV race.  

Rebecca Grusby ran an outstanding race to take first in the Division I varsity race in an incredible time of 18:22.  That places Rebecca in a tie with former All State 2 mile champion and 2 time All State cross country runner up Eliza Beardslee for 6th on our Blue All Time List (under 19:00) as she passes up Kathy O Keefe 18:29, Julie Farago 18:36 and Melanie Fineman 18:50.  These are multi time Boston Globe All Stars, State Division and All State Champions and All Americans that Rebecca is now keeping company with.  This is an amazing accomplishment for a 9th grader of the likes that we have never seen and she does it by keeping it fun and in perspective which is so refreshing.

Lucrecia kept Rebecca in sight the entire race and set a 37 second PR to move into 11th on our Blue list in 18:55 just behind Melanie Fineman (former Division I mile champion, 5 time All American and All State Mile Runner Up to teammate Kathy O Keefe and ahead of Olga Golovkina and Aly Venti (became All New England College Champion for Amherst). This was a great effort for Lucrecia and her confidence should be very high after this.

Our three lists represent the very best of the over 600 girls that have run for Newton South in the 21 year McChesney (Steven and Marianne) era.  The Blue list is made up of girls that have broken 19:00 for 5k and that represents the top 2% of all girls that have run for our storied program.

Only 30 girls have made the Orange list or better as you need to break 20 minutes to make that list as Anna Rhatigan has twice this season and that represents the top 5% of Newton South cross country all time.   Our Black list just got a few more names added as Matia  moved up from 55th to 44th placing on the list.   Yasmine placed her name on the black list for the first time in 20:33 with Margalit close behind and also making the list at 52nd in 20:49 for the first time.  Emily Caggiano set a season best in 20:52 and has run onto the black list many times as our most experienced runner.

Junior Sara Wang ran a great race to place 6th out of 280 runners in the JV race in 20:56 PR which puts her 59th out of the 63 girls in our program that have broken 21:00. 9th Grader Caraline Pham chose to run in the JV race to help the team effort and she ran a great 12th place in a PR of 21:12. Junior  Sarina Weiss who has a place on the black list in the past returned to great form and took the last JV medal in 25th place in a season best of 21:39.  A great case could be made for Louisa Kimmell being our most improved girl as she had a huge PR to place 28th in 21:44.  9th grader Annika McGraw also had a huge PR to break the 22:00 barrier in 21:57.

Junior Leah Jacobson was close behind in 43rd with a nice time of 22:14.

Senior captain Leah Abercrombie ran a minute and 29 seconds faster this year than she did last year in the same race and placed 68th in 22:53.  Sophomore Amy Gilbert ran a PR in 24:05 to place 115th and sophomore Audrey Hooker ran a very solid 25:23 for 181st place.

This JV team is so strong that our times would have placed the JV team in the top 10 in the girls varsity race.  That is a nice testament to the dedication of our entire team.

In the 9th grade race Noosha Aliabadi ran a wonderful race placing 52nd out of 195 runners in a PR time of 15:01 and Ksenia Potapov looked strong in placing 128th in a PR of 16:38 for the 2.1 mile course.

Varsity Team - Division 1:

1. Needham       47

2. Newton South     78

3. Notre Dame (H)  83

4. Weymouth    97

5. Franklin              160

6. Brookline            174   6 teams ranked top 20 in State going into meet 

7. Falmouth     234

8. Marshfield    257

9. King Phillip        263

10. Brockton          283

11. Reading           283

12. Beverly            292

13. Oliver Ames    321

14. Stoughton        331

15. N. Attleborough 379

16. Mansfiled       402

17. Holyoke         423

NS girls at McIntyre Twilight Meet, 13 Oct. 2012

NSHS girls take 2nd place to Needham in the division 1 race. The div 1 race had 17 teams. Freshman Rebecca Grusby wins race. There were 130 varsity runners in the race.
Varsity and JV races are 5K, freshman 2.1M

div 1 photos from Milesplit
race story by Milesplit

girls div 1 results
girls JV results
girls freshman race results

MSTCA 2012 XC schedule and results

girls division 1 NS results:

1 Grusby, Rebecca     FR Newton South  18:22.27

4 Aguilar, Lucrecia   JR Newton South  18:55.23
10 Rhatigan, Anna     JR Newton South  19:18.75
31 Whiting, Matia     SO Newton South  20:29.00
37 Hashemi, Yasmine   JR Newton South  20:33.50
42 Glasgow, Margalit  JR Newton South  20:49.00
43 Caggiano, Emily    SR Newton South  20:52.00

girls JV race NS results:

6 Wang, Sara          JR Newton South  20:56.56
12 Pham, Caraline     FR Newton South  21:12.80
25 Weiss, Sarina      JR Newton South  21:39.81
28 Kimmell, Louisa    SO Newton South  21:44.97
35 McGraw, Annika     FR Newton South  21:57.71
43 Jacobson, Leah     JR Newton South  22:14.16
68 Abercrombie, Leah  SR Newton South  22:53.64
115 Gilbert, Amy      SO Newton South  24:05.83
181 Hooker, Audrey    SO Newton South  25:23.05

girls freshman race NS results (2.1 miles):
52 Aliabadi, Noosha  FR Newton South  15:01.77

128 Potapov, Ksenia  FR Newton South  16:38.23

NS boys at

55th Wachusett Invitational Cross Country Meet

Wachusett Reg. HS - Holden, MA, October 13, 2012

The boys went out to Holden MA
Full results:
Wachusetts results

Class A varsity:
1 Colin Bennie SR Wachsuett 15:50.6 

2 Jonathan Green SR Saint John's 15:55.6 

3 Alex Crowley SR Saint John's 16:28.4
4 Allen Shiu JR Newton South 16:31.5
15 Michael Costello JR Newton South 17:33.0
23 Nick Reed SR Newton South 18:05.7
30 Collin Pham JR Newton South 18:28.0 

32 Parker Olson JR Newton South 18:36.4 

36 Tal Golan JR Newton South 18:51.2 

38 Pat Mahoney SO Newton South 19:03.4

Team:
3rd Newton South 100 points (4,14,22,29,31 35,37) 

 Total Time: 1:29:14.60 Average: 17:50.92

Class A junior varsity:
1 Declan Healey JR Algonquin 18:22.1
8 Aaron Edelstein JR Newton South 18:56.3
14 Calvin Rose SO Newton South 19:18.3
20 Andy Theall FR Newton South 19:33.6
22 Ben Weingart SO Newton South 19:40.7
54 Dezso Wyner SO Newton South 21:15.3 (hurt)

NS v Waltham dual meet at NSHS

still waiting for results. please send

a note from coach Norton

The meet Wednesday will be at Newton South HS, NOT Cold Springs Park.

a note from boys coach Norton:

The NS Boys are at it again! Their next XC meet will be on the Newton South campus on Wednesday Oct. 10 against Waltham. Same order as before JV will start at 4:15pm followed by the Varsity at near 5:10pm.
Unfortunately, we couldn't have this meet at the Cold Springs Park due to a schedule conflict, but these Boys are ready to race wherever and whenever!
If you've been to the previous home meet you know how easy it is to view the Boys in flight as they whip past the stands, the baseball and soccer fields!
Yes, they did have their chance this season to race on true XC courses through the woods, but this is a second chance to improve their race times and learn by testing different tactics that will prepare them for the big DCL Championship on Friday Oct. 26 at Lincoln-Sudbury.

Speaking of chances and opportunities, at this meet, you will see a few new prospects in the varsity lineup. This XC program is built around progress towards leadership. When opportunity arise to make a difference the individual must be ready to take on the responsibility for themselves and for the team.

Varsity:
Michael Costello, Ben Eisenberg, Nicholas Reed, Parker Olson, Pat Mahoney, Tal Golan, Dylan Shuler, Ben Weingart, Relja Nedeljkovic, Aaron Edelstein

JV Front Runners:
Calvin Rose, Andy Theall, William Rhatigan, Carter Howe, Matt Shaughnessy, Aryeh Lieberman, Dezso Wyner, Isaiah Kriegman, Eric Zhang, Jordan Cohen-Kaplan, Curtis Teitleman, Nadav Furgang, Joshua Zaff, Roee Grutman, Sam Noymer, Robby Fineman, Eli Braginsky, Sam Hirschhorn, Nelson Merino, Arjun Albert, Paul Chan, Sam Rosenblatt. Anders Boberg, David Danino, Jim Wang

Coach Norton

NSHS v Waltham @ NSHS (NOT Cold Springs)

The dual meet against Waltham tomorrow (Wed. 10 Oct.) will be at Newton South, NOT Cold Spring Park.
There is a conflict with a Newton North event at Cold Spring.

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

Catch up results from Steven

1 Oct 12; from Steven M.
Catch up on past few meets

Newton South vs Westford and Wayland  9/19/2012

This was a good week for Newton South girls cross country.  On Wednesday we improved our DCL record to 4 - 0 and 1 -0 in the large school division with a 15 - 50 win over host Wayland and 20 - 37 win over a Westford.  We have gone against some very well coached teams that have a tradition of winning in the DCL and we respect our record because we respect our competition.

Wayland has constructed a new home course and this was the first meet to run on it.  This is the toughest course in the DCL and it is listed as 2.9, but runs more like a 5K because of the footing and hills. In fact 5 of 6 of our girls ran faster in a 5K at Amherst than they did on this course.

Anna Rhatigan has set the first course record as she led our girls from the start with a time of 19:28 over the hilly and rough 2.9 mile course.  Anna paced teammates freshman Rebecca Grusby, 19:30, and Lucrecia Aguilar to a fast 1,2,3 team finish.  Junior Margalit Glasgow was 5th and has been very steady as our 4th running in 20:50.  New sophomore Matia Whiting is gaining experience and confidence with each race and she rounded out the scoring in 9th overall in 21:17.  Junior Yasmine Hashemi was right behind in 21:20.  Team captain Emily Caggiano was 11th in 21:39.

New comer, Junior Lizzie Fineman, has improved a great deal in a short time and she ran as our 7th and finished in 13th ahead of the top scorer for Wayland and also cracking the Westford top 7.  Senior team captain Leah Abercrombie placed 14th in 21:46 and Junior Sara Wang gave us 9 girls in the top 14 in 22:09.

Our JV team is also 4-0 with a pair of wins going 15-49 vs Wayland and 16-34 vs Westford.  In the years that we have this kind of team depth I call our JV team our 2nd varsity.  Our JV team is strong enough to win against some varsity teams in the strongest league in the state and would have a winning record in most leagues in the state. Our JV team often has girls pulled up to fill varsity positions and when kids are ill or injured they do not get replacements.  So the JV team in this meet was a bit short handed and you always hope in these kinds of situations that someone will step up.  Freshman Annika McGraw showed a great deal of improvement to place 6th as our 5th girl and in doing so she beat the 2nd JV girl from Westford and the top girl from Wayland in a time of 23:50. 

 Frosh Caraline Pham won her 4th JV race in 22:27 followed by junior Leah Jacobson - 23:05,  sophomore Caroline Delheim - 23:17, Louisa Kimmell in 23:31.  Louisa is one of our most improved girls and I was excited as her coach to see her in front of the top JV girl from the other teams as she is very dedicated.  Caraline Pham has good instincts for a runner new to high school and has been very convincing in her wins.  All of the JV girls stepped up and ran great races on the toughest course in the DCL.  Sophomore Audrey Hooker was13th in a best time of 26:04, frosh Amelia Stern was 14th - 26:15 and Ksenia Ptapov rounded out our team with a nice effort in 29:42.

 

Amherst Invitational  9/22/2012

We had a positive showing at the Amherst Invitational on Saturday finishing 4th out of a field of 21 teams in which 7 teams came into the meet ranked in the top 20 in the state. 

Amherst won the meet with 99 points.  Then came a blanket finish with Needham placing 2nd  with 139, Notre Dame (Hingham) was 3rd with 145 to our 146.  I felt good about the outcome as Margalit was absent due to an approved academic reason and she had been running as our 4th at the point in the season.  So to come so close to being in the the top two in this field and being a bit short handed was a good outcome which also signals new kids stepping up.  We also were able to beat out Central MA power Wachusett and Eastern MA power Haverhill. Those are very meaningful teams to beat.

What I like most about the race is that we had 3 girls break 19:40 which bodes well for the future and also two more break 21:00 this early and another pair right behind in 21:08.  Our team is showing good depth as well as strong front running. 

The headline has to be that freshman Rebecca Grusby is now 10th on our all time list placing 7th in 18:54 over 5K.  We keep three Honor Rolls for NSXC.  The black list is now at 60 girls that have broken 21 minutes in a 5K cross country race.  The Orange list now has 30 girls under 20 minutes and that list is very difficult to make.  Our Blue list is filled with All Americans and  state champions and only includes 12 athletes over our storied history.  Freshman Rebecca Grusby now sits 10th on our blue list in 18:54 just behind 4 x All American Melanie Fineman who won the Division I mile and placed 2nd  in All State. I have never had a girl debut onto the Blue list in her first varsity 5K before.  Given how many special athletes that we have had over the years that is truly amazing.

To be fair the Amherst course is faster than most, but it is a true measured 5k distance.

 What I like about Rebecca is that she just loves to race.  She takes it all in stride and is having fun.  My job as her coach is to make sure that she keeps having fun.

Next we had a pair tying their PRs.  Anna Rhatigan ran her exact PR racing to 19:05 and Lucrecia did the same in 19:32.  That is a very strong 1,2,3 punch.

Sophomore Matia became the 60th girl in school history to break 21:00 minutes racing to 54 place out of 143 runners in a PR of 20:52.  When you consider that in the past 21 years our program has averaged having about 30 girls a year on our team that number would add up to 630 runners or so.  Only  the top 10 per cent of girls that have come out for our team have broken 21:00.  So that is a worthy achievement.

Captain Emily Caggiano rounded out our top 5 scoring in 20:59 and captain Leah Abercrombie placed 63 in 21:08 and  junior Yasmine Hashemi was one place back in the same time as Leah.

Junior Sara Wang ran a stellar PR in 21:23 to take 2nd in the JV race. Junior Lizzie Fineman also ran a PR in 21:34 to take 4th in the JV field of 205 runners as our JV team finished 2nd.  Freshman Caraline Pham finished 8th in a PR of 22:09 and Caroline Delheim ran to a large improvement finishing 10th in 22:11 to lead our JV team to a 2nd place finish out of 16 teams.

Newton South vs Concord - Carlisle and Lincoln-Subbury   9/27/2012

Going into this meet I felt that our best chance to win against either team was to go 1,2,3 which by itself be enough to win.  Unfortunately, Anna Rhatigan was ill and we simply could not afford to be short handed up front against two of the very best teams in the state.  Both teams beat us by a score of 24-37.  Had Anna run any of the races that she has this season the meet against each team would have been a 1 or 2 point meet.  So we are now 4-2 as a team going into AB on Wed.

Rebecca Grusby ran a super fast time over the 2.75 mile LS course to win in 16:42.

Lucrecia Aguilar was just behind the first girls of both teams finishing 4th in 17:06 which is also a stellar time.  After that LS and CC took advantage of our gap to our 3rd runner and beat us on depth.  We had decent packing and would have been fine in most other meets, but our pack was running behind the packing of the other two teams.  We got off to a slow start and these two teams know how to close and do not give up ground over the 2nd half of any race.   Yasmine Hashemi was 20th 18:43, Leah Abercrombie 18:48, Margalit Glasgow 18:56, Matia Whiting 19:13 and Emily Caggiano in 19:30.

A bright spot for us was Lizzie Fineman winning the JV race in 18:54 which would have put her as our 4th runner in the varsity race.  Sara Wang took 4th in the JV race in 19:04 and would have been in our top 6.  

My feeling is that we weathered a tough stretch racing a tough course at Wayland followed by Amherst and then the LS-CC meet all in a weeks time.  

Frank Kelley Invitational - Wrentham Developmental Center  9/29/2012

We choose to go to this invitational because it is run over the course that is now the one that the Division I Eastern MA championship will be decided on as well as the qualifier for the All State meet.  I felt we had to get our girls onto the course.  I split our varsity and allowed Emily, Matia, Yasmine and Leah to do a workout over the course before the races got started.

Anna Rhatigan was going to join them, but was still sick.  So my feeling is that these girls got to know the feel of the course in a meaningful way, but could rest mentally for our meet against AB on Wednesday which should be a great test of our depth.  

I entered Rebecca in the Division I - 9th grade race to give her a break from the longer distance and also the pressure of varsity competition.  She continues to be a bouncy fun loving highlight reel as she took on the number one girl from the Whitman-Hanson team that is ranked #1 in the All State rankings.  Rebecca’s winning time of 11:13 for for 1.9 miles is her best race of the season and is a 9th grade school record and won by 36 seconds.  The winner of the Division II 9th grade race ran 11:52.

Freshman Samantha Coletti of Whitman-Hanson is one of the fastest girls in the state and has been winning every race that she runs.  Colettie rocketed to the lead in a first 400 that looked to be nearer to 5 minute pace than 5:20 mile pace and Rebecca and a girl from Brockton who did not finish in the top 50 followed her from about 5 meters back.

Going in I knew that Colletti was very good, but I also felt that Rebecca could handle the one on one match up well.  Rebecca shadowed her from about 5 meters back through a fast first 1/2 mile which was cagey racing for runners of any experience level.  At this point the race passed by me and I yelled at Rebecca to close the gap and she did just that in a very short distance.  I am not sure if she heard me or not or just had the same idea, but she moved up with real ease.  At the mile she took off and the race was over as she honestly looked like she was picking up more speed over the 2nd half of the course and she opened up a 36 second gap over less than a mile.  This was a very nice win for Rebecca.  Caraline Pham also ran a super race finishing 14th in 12:54.

I feel that our varsity team is much deeper than the top 7 and the girls proved this.  I had 6 members of our varsity do a workout over the course, sit out or run in the 9th grade race and all for reasons that will help our team in the future.  So we fielded 5 girls that belonged in the varsity race and they represented us well.  Lucrecia and Margalit have each missed a race earlier in the season so I wanted to give them the chance to race.  Lucrecia was in the front group throughout the race and placed 14th in 19:51.  Lucrecia has had nothing but good races meet in and meet out and she ran well once again.  Margalit ran a solid race in 21:34 and moved up over the entire course which is her trade mark.

Lizzie Fineman has not put in very many miles as a distance runner, but she knows how to compete and with her limited background in the sport she now looks like she can really help us at the state level as a scorer.   She placed as our 2nd in 21:21 scoring 65th out of 189 runners. That is two stellar races for her in a row and she will now be a fixture on our varsity.

  Sara was a top runner on our jv team last year and she has willed her way onto our varsity.  She set a 5K PR of 21:57 and looked strong scoring 91st.  Caroline Delheim got to run in her first varsity race and she made the most of it scoring 114th in a 5K PR of 22:39.

Leah Jacobson placed 31st in the JV race in 23:19 and Sarina Weiss was close behind in 23:47.

We had a number of other girls running in their first invitational and I include their efforts when I say that I was proud of our entire team.  We had a day to be proud of.