2016 NY Girls XC Preview: AIS

AIS Preview

The AIS is a weird mix of independent schools with homes in blue-blood Ivy League type habitats (Hackley, Horace Mann, Brearley, Dalton, Spence), convents (Convent of the Sacred Heart and maybe School of the Holy Child), world institutions (UN International School), technical and college prep oriented schools (Poly Prep and Packer) and little old school houses (Elisabeth Irwin - Little Red Schoolhouse). What binds them all together is the singular desire to get together in early November for a run at Van Cortlandt Park where they try to prove which of their varying philosophies is preeminent

Last year Hackley claimed a third straight championship with a team that was very senior oriented, especially in the form of Julia Stevenson, the top runner to come out of the AIS in recent times with a a top 10 in Federation and top 20 (or 16) in the NXN-NY, something you would never have expected from the AIS a few years ago. But again, years ago you would not have expected that the AIS would have had teams like Hackley and Convent of the Sacred Heart who were among the top 4 teams in the NYC region in 2015 but were fighting for one spot in the CHSAA-PSAL-AIS 5-4-1 allotment for the ten teams that the NYC schools get to send to Feds. Odd and weird, but again this is New York XC we're talking about here, so this year the two teams plus a strongly developing Poly Prep will all be battling for the single AIS spot. Sorry, but three (maybe four or five) into one doesn't fit.

But every year is new, and Hackley was hit hard by the graduations of Julia Stevenson and many seniors, while Convent of the Sacred Heart and Poly Prep kept all or most of their top runners locked down, so this year the landscape in the oddly constructed AIS shows up with CSH of the the Calcignini sisters (Paris + Fiona) and Julia Larson at the top of the hill in the AIS, and Poly Prep behind a driving force of Ella Ketchum just a ways downhill, and a Hackley with young Olivia Curran taking over the reins as frontrunner trying to rebuild a team up toward the top. And don't overlook little old LREI (Little Red Schoolhouse-Elisabeth Irwin) that has now moved up to the number 4 spot, with a second-life Marymount in 5th. There's a lot percolating going on here for an association that get just one ticket to Feds.

Along with all the teams jousting for that one chair at Feds, there is now the big question of who will replace Julia Stevenson as the AIS frontrunner., and in possibly the weirdest situation in New York or any other state history, you have three former champions of a conference battling to replace the departed reigning champ. So yes, Ella Ketchum (2014), Paris Calcignini (2012), and Carolina Beroutsas (2013) will all be vying for the top spot along with Calcignini's teammate Julia Larson and Stevenson's teammate Olivia Curran who will be taking over as the frontrunner for Hackley this year and Ketchum's PP teammate Patricia Haggerty plus Paris's liitle sister Fiona. Just toss the dice.

So yeah, just don't stand in the way of a stampede of AIS runners when they are heading for the Back Hills in the AIS championship, which Steve the photograher learned shortly after this photo was taken.

AIS Team Profiles