The Girls Cross Country team has, for the fourth year in a row, come home from the NEPSTA Division I Cross Country Championships victorious. The team came to the meet “confident, but not conceited,” said Coach Nancy Lang. Although the team had not been defeated all season, “the race is won on the course, in the moment.” The varsity team won with a score of 25 points. The seven girls running for the varsity team, consisting of Abby Levene ’09, Stephanie Moroney ’09, Captain Berol Dewdney ’09, Georgina Norton ’09, Caitlin Kingston ’11, Aubrey Zimmerling ’09, and Becca MacRae ’09, all ran amazing races, finishing respectively. Levene, the winner of the race, broke the course record by over a minute and a half, with a time of 18:22, and received the title of NEPSTA Div. 1 Champion for the second year in a row. Coach Lang said, “It’s such an amazing thing to win this title four years in a row. Individually our runners each did very well, but success like this comes as a team. Every girl helped each other to get the best team score we could.” The junior varsity team carried on its tradition of “sweeping” the race – winning places one through five for the lowest score possible of 15. Katie Ellinger ’12, Tavie Abell ’10, Caroline Gezon ’10, Stassja Sichko ’10 and Molly Levene ’12 came in the first five places, respectively. “Team success depends not only on having talent, but having depth,” said Coach Lang. “Our JV girls really show our depth – we have so many amazing runners that they can’t all be varsity, so our junior varsity team is especially strong.” Coach Lang has, throughout the season, focused on the growth of each runner. She said, “Only Berol and Abby were on the varsity team their junior year. Some of the other runners on our varsity team this year didn’t come to interschols their first year, which really shows how much they’ve grown.” Having watched the eight seniors who went to interschols grow up over four years, Coach Lang is sad to have seen their last race. “We’ll really miss them. They are such a strong group of girls, and watching them grow up on the team was really special,” said Lang. She has high hopes for future years, though: “Even though the girls who won the first time are now gone, we have a really bright future. Just look at our JV team – they’re so strong and ready.” Dewdney said, “That was the proudest moment for me – watching everybody finish at interschols. All of our runners looked so strong.” “Having such a clear win, both in the varsity and junior varsity races, for the fourth year in a row, is such an accomplishment. I really couldn’t be more proud,” she continued. At the final team meeting on Tuesday, many runners found that they had tears in their eyes. “I’ll really miss this team,” said Dewdney. She continued, “I enjoyed the whole experience so much. In some ways it’s not even the running itself but spending so much time with girls you love makes it special.” For the next two weeks the Cross Country team will train for the Nike Regionals, which will be held on November 29. This year, Regionals will take place in Poughkeepsie, New York.
