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from Steve M:

We had AB today in the 92 - 97 heat index heat.

Newton South  24   Acton Boxborough  31

Today it was hot and humid enough that coaches from both teams agreed to shortened the course from 2.86 to one lap of the track beyond the JV distance of 1.92..

2.17 miles on the Newton South campus course.

Acton-Boxborough is a very good program with some qaulity athletes returning and some new kids that look promising.  They have a gifted coach in Lisa Owen and a nice mix of kids that have experience and new kids that are not afraid to mix it up.   I think with a bit more training and experience AB is going to become even more compeititive.  

So this was a good win for us.  Acton-Boxorough was without one of their top returning runners in Sophie Brown who had a break out season on the track last spring.  I pulled freshman Katie Collins from the meet, who is currently running in our top 5 or 6, and Yasmine Hashemi who was very consistent on our state meet team last year because both have had a history of not handling heat well.  Both are fine and healthy, but on such a hot day we just wanted kids to be safe.

Anna Rhatigan is also coming back from a concussion and illness on top of that and really did not get to train during our preseason so she will take a big more time to get back into our top 5.

So I felt good that our depth stepped up and gave us a nice win.

Sophomore Rebecca Grusby looked like she was running with ease. Senior Lucrecia Aguilar went most of the race with Rebecca, but had some issues with the heat and slowed in the middle of the race which was a smart approach.  She had a tremendous kick so her place was never really in doubt.  We got some help from our youth brigade in frosh Clare Martin finishing 4th in her first varsity high school race.  Clare has such a relaxed way about her when she runs and she ran a stellar first race.  

Senior Lizzie Fineman really came alive in the last 700 meters on the track and made up a lot of distance and picked up two places.  Junior Matia Whiting and senior Sara Wang both ran solid races as well.  I was thrilled with the race from senior Leah Jacobson to finish 13th as she has worked hard and now is a varsity contributor.

We won the JV race and I mention that for 2 reasons.  This is a very deep frosh team and they will help a lot next year.  Also many of them show promise to make varstiy at points in the season this fall.

 When you convert sophomore Sasha Winston-Kahn time into the varsity race she would have finished close to the top 10.  She ran a varsity caliber race in wining the JV meet as did many of our other JV runners. Our JV team placed 5 in the top 7 with one sophomore and 4 freshman. All four would make many varsities in the state.