Girls Cross Country competed at the New England Preparatory School Track & Field Association (NEPSTA) Division I Cross Country Championships (Interschols) at Taft this past Saturday, winning the Varsity race and placing second in the JV race.
Andover sent seven runners to compete in the Varsity race. Ultimately, Amelia Alvazzi ’26 placed second in 18:38, Anya Budzinski ’26 placed seventh in 19:34, and Sophie Stetson ’29 finished ninth in 20:22. Corinne Spade ’27 and Maddie Marshall ’29 placed fifteenth and seventeenth in 20:49 and 20:52 respectively, rounding out Andover’s top five finishers from the race.
As the team’s last race of the season, Interschols was what the team had worked toward during the whole season, according to Co-Captain Chloe Song ’26. Song commented on the team’s focus on Interschols.
“We’ve been training all season, putting money in the bank. Interschols was always emphasized to us as where we want to peak and where we want to push the hardest because it’s our most important race of the season. It’s the time where you can best represent your team,” said Song.
At the meet, Marshall described how supportive the team was of one another. Marshall shared how she was impacted by the support from the crowd and her teammates.
“Everyone was just cheering on their own, super loud. Our team is super supportive. You’ll find your teammates on the course just cheering you on as loud as they can. It makes it really easy to run fast because your whole team is behind you,” said Marshall.
Before the race, the team walked through the course to get a sense of the layout. Song described the difficulty of the course and poor race conditions, as athletes had to run through muddy hay at some points in the course.
“We had to soak everything in on the day of when we did our course walk. And the ground was soggy, too. The course was wet as well, and there were two points in the race super close to each other where there were mud puddles and you had to go through them. So, the terrain was tough, both because of the weather and also because Taft has a lot of hay,” said Song.
The team tapered its training intensity before the race to optimize its performance. Hannah Jung ’28, who finished 29th in the Varsity race in 21:32, recalled how the team prepared for Interschols and balanced athletics with the academic demands that come with the end of the term.
“The week leading up to Interschols, we lightened the mileage that we ran every day and instead we focused on staying fresh and not getting burnt out in the penultimate week. We had to get an adequate amount of sleep and stay sharp for Saturday,” said Jung.
Jung added that the high stakes of the competition came with high levels of nerves and pressure. Since the team had driven three hours to Taft, it had to focus to perform its best.
“It was a little tense. We were all nervous and maybe a little jitter[y] or tired from the three-hour bus ride. But we went in with the goal of having fun, knowing we tried our best and letting the results follow that,” said Jung.
Song expressed that support from the team’s coaches also helped it. As a Co-Captain, Song helped convey Head Coach Patrick Rielly’s message to enjoy the race.
“We wanted to keep the girls relaxed, and we didn’t want to put pressure on them. We wanted them to first and foremost enjoy the race and have fun because it can be hard to stay grounded on a stressful day like Interschols. That ‘enjoy the race’ mentality was what helped us race really well. The supportive and relaxed atmosphere that was encouraged by Coach Rielly was really helpful to our performances,” said Song.
While the team’s season is over, Alvazzi and Budzinski will race at the Brooks Northeast Cross Country Championships on November 29 in Boston, Massachusetts. Placing among the top ten competitors at the meet would qualify them for the Brooks National Cross Country Championships in San Diego, California.
