I commented last week that runners should just focus on racing and while I’m reasonably certain this newsletter is not where people come to develop their race strategy, some pretty spectacular racing took place by South on Saturday.

Since Milton is such a hard course, it’s not really fair to compare their times to other courses this year, so I thought I’d do some digging and see how folks did compared to what they ran at Milton last year. I knew there were some impressive performances, but was not prepared for what I found. Of the 25 runners that competed at this meet last year, 20 of them improved over last year. And I’m not talking about a few seconds. The average improvement for those 20 was a whopping 1 minute, 38 seconds.

The Girls

I’m going to save the suspense and go right to the headline. Last week I reported that Izzy tied her best finish with her 2nd place in AL, but she had her sights on something bigger and we got to witness history as Izzy grabbed her first XC victory. And this one was a no doubter, as once she took the lead she left everyone in the dust, winning by 43 seconds.

The course is made up of one 1k loop, followed by two 2k loops and coming out of the first loop, Izzy was patiently sitting on the back of the lead pack. By the first mile marker, the pack had started to spread and Izzy was sitting in third. Molly Hanlon was just inside the top 20, but had 4 West girls ahead of her, so had some work to do. Paige Harden was 20 seconds back around 35th and Danielle Schmuckal was in 65th, with Susan Price, Ava Wright, Pratima Yellayi and Landon Layman all within 10 seconds.

As they made their way out of the woods the second time and headed toward the two mile mark, Izzy had taken the lead and had a nice 11-second gap over the 2nd place runner. Molly must have gone crazy in the woods because she emerged in 8th place and had overtaken all but one of the West runners. Paige had moved up a few spots, but Danielle and Susan had made the biggest moves as they were up around 50th.

Izzy increased her lead over the final lap and cruised to an easy victory. Molly held her spot and finished 8th as South’s #2 and while Paige may not have had her best day, she still gutted out a 30th place finish. Danielle and Susan stuck together for the last mile and came in just a few seconds apart, with Dani taking 47th and Susan 49th. Meanwhile, Ava hammered the last mile and took 58th place, as she ran almost 2 ½ minutes faster than last year. Pratima was South’s 7th runner, landing in 66th, with Landon closing out the varsity runners in 74th. You might be thinking “gee, Pratima’s been one of South’s top 5 this year, what happened?” But I’d suggest you look at 2022 Pratima and see that she led the way for South in terms of year over year improvement, as she shaved nearly 4 minutes off her time from last year, so I say “Way to go Pratima!”

Not to take anything away from our South runners, but the craziest thing in the JV race was the girl that won. She bolted away from the start, had a minute on the field by the mile and won by 2 ½ minutes with a time that would have landed her top 10 in the varsity race. Even crazier, it turns out she is an 8th grader! Anyway, that’s all irrelevant to how South did. You didn’t have many repeats from last year among the JV girls, so for many this was their first taste of Milton.

The top folks for South kind of ran in pairs, with Lilly Jenkins and Saide Morgan staying close for most of the race, with Lilly pulling away late to lead South in 74th place. Sadie was just 9 seconds back in 76th. Next were Ella Jenkins and Kaitlyn Stinson, who hung together through 2 miles and also finished just 2 places apart in 85th and 87th, respectively. Mariana Figueroa was the final scorer in 92nd, as South took 10th place as a team. I want to give a special nod to Sophia Perrino, who finally worked her way back to run in a meet - her first one in basically a year.

The Guys

The varsity boys race was full of suspense. Coming out of the first loop, there were 15 guys in the lead pack, with Ben Winn and Adam Zorko both among them. Rishi Naggapan had gotten out well, sitting inside the top 20 and Thomas Lichtenwalner was just 5 seconds back around 25th. 5 seconds later was Wyatt Longstreth and just behind him were Camden Coker and Aariv Gupta. Over the next lap, while most of the pack fell off, Ben and Adam hung tough and heading into the final big loop, both were among a group of 5 that all looked like they were ready to battle for the win. Thomas had climbed inside the top 20 and Rishi had fallen off the pace a bit but was holding on as South’s 4th, while Camden and Aariv had overtaken Wyatt.

All you could do at that point was head to the finish line and wait to see where things landed as they emerged from the woods. Could South actually grab the individual title on both the guys and girls side? It was so exciting to see Ben come up that last hill and cross the road for the final straight in the lead, but West’s Diego Fernandes was still in striking distance. Ben has dramatically improved his kick in the past year and he used it Saturday to actually pull away from Diego down the finish chute and match Izzy with the first win of his XC career. And he did it in style with the 8th fastest time ever run on the Milton course. So now what? I think we drop the extra ‘n’ and he becomes Ben Win! My bigger concern came after the race and all the hoopla, picture requests, etc. that Ben had to endure - I’m worried he might prefer 2nd place to all that fuss.

Let’s not forget about Adam in all this. He had a great day as he held his own over the last loop through the woods to take 4th overall, in what they declared was a top 10 time on the course, but looking at the list looks like maybe just outside of that - still darn impressive. Thomas also had himself a solid day, improving his time by almost 2 minutes as he moved up over that last lap to take 15th. Camden kept climbing throughout and finished as South’s 4th runner in 42nd place. Rishi may have dropped a bit from his start, but he gutted out a solid 46th place that was over a minute faster than he ran here last year. Aariv took 53rd and Grant Longstreth had a strong kick to pass a number of runners down the stretch as he finished 60th. South took a 5th as a team, which is pretty solid, especially considering Wyatt was under the weather. You put him up in his normal spot and suddenly South is battling West for 3rd place. I’m telling you, good things are ahead for this team.

Ben Dubrow is probably getting used to leading the charge in the JV race, but he had company on Saturday as Pierson Long matched him stride for stride as they went 1-2 for South in 26th and 27th place. Jaxson Herman was just 10 seconds back in 36th as he dropped 2 minutes off his last year time. The next two for South was another pair, as Nikil Selladurai and Yash Panchal battled together all the way to the finish, with Nikil just getting him at the line in 57th and 58th place, both with awesome improvement over last year. John Ryan (68th) and Ryan Gorgone (70th) closed out the top 7 for South. Special shoutout to Coleman Burch, who led the guys in terms of year over year improvement, dropping 3:45 off his time. The JV guys took 6th as a team.

SUBJECT: SFHS XC Newsletter September 19, 2023