Girls Cross Country Places Fourth in NMH Invitational

This past Saturday, Andover Girls Cross Country traveled to Gill, Mass. to compete in its second meet of the season at the Northfield Mount Hermon Invitational. Andover placed fourth out of seven teams with a total score of 83, falling 56 points behind first-place Keene High School.

Natasha Muromcew ’22 was the only Andover runner to place within the top ten of the Varsity race, with a time of 21:34 minutes.

Despite Andover’s fourth place finish, the team’s pack running was especially strong this race, according to Captain Posie Millett ’20.

Millett said, “I was so impressed with our performance this weekend. I was standing at the second mile to record times for the team and there was a point where we had so many Andover runners all in that pack together because having that closeness allowed us to beat out some other teams.”

Comprised of mostly newer runners, Andover demonstrated its strong potential for the rest of the season, according to Claire De Saint Phalle ’21.

De Saint Phalle said, “I think we did really well. We have been training really hard early on in the season, so it has paid off which is really rewarding. As a newer team I think we show a lot of promise for future races.”

For the rest of the season, the team hopes to work on its pacing and speed, especially in the final leg of the race, according to Muromcew and Millett.

“I think it would be great if we could focus a lot more on form, which entails for us to not only run faster, but run smarter. We can definitely work on our pacing and just making sure to conserve energy for the latter two miles which are a lot more important in the race. Pacing is something that every runner has to figure out on their own, but with experience that will come and help the team improve,” said Muromcew.

Millett added, “Something we haven’t focused a lot on given how early [it is] in the season is our end of the race kick. The last mile of the race is really important and where you want to give it your all and go to the best of your ability. We haven’t worked on the speed aspect of it yet because we have just been working on our endurance but I think as we get closer to Interschols we will fine tune this skill which will help our results a lot.”

Andover will compete against Choate away this Saturday.