Ed. Note: Clay is the Cycling team’s captain. At the league championships at New Hampton on Wednesday, the cycling team edged out Holderness School to place second overall behind Exeter for the season. “In a league that benefits teams with many riders, second place overall is not bad at all considering we have a relatively small team,” said Coach Thayer Zaeder. “Exeter, who has placed first overall for the past three years, is able to ride in and thus score in all five categories of riders because they have a much larger team. The scoring system is a little unfair.” The course on Wednesday circled Newfound Lake and finished with a steep quarter-mile long hill, which had a max grade of 12 percent. As Coach Zaeder described the final hill, “It was a real digger.” In the Girls A category, the girl’s team placed first overall. Hilary Rich ’09 not only won the league championship race, but also took first place overall in the individual category for the league. In the Boys A race, Mike Discenza ’09 finished eighth overall and first for Andover. C.J. Queenan ’09 finished behind Discenza at eleventh. Captain Andrew Clay ’08 spent most of the race trying unsuccessfully to catch up to the main pack after being plagued by a mechanical mishap halfway through the race. Clay ended up placing thirteenth. “It wouldn’t have been a Boys A race without a mechanical. Clay did about all he could do in the race seeing as the pace in the main pack picked up significantly after he stopped,” Zaeder said. “After stopping to fix his bike, he caught up with another group of dropped riders including two Exeter riders and was able to sprint past them at the finish.”
