2015 Season Summary |
New York State XC Season Guide - Girls 2016
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The hordes at Federation eat up the first hill led by Kelsey Chmiel, Diana Vizza, and Jennifer Lawson. |
After a flurry of strong action in early September, last year's XC action got very very hot (and humid) at the Pre-States Crusader Classic at Monroe-Woodbury. Many NYSPHSAA teams and one pack of lost soles from New Jersey previewed the States course under much different conditions than they would see it in November. The host Crusaders squad won the first of the varsity races, and other Pre-States winners that made big noise during the season included Shenedehowa, East Aurora, and North Rockland. Corning's Jessica Lawson established herself as the top runner in NY with a huge win in the first race by 24 seconds over eventual Class B States champ Diana Vizza of North Shore, and Elmira's Abbey Wheeler would be the third best runner on the day while winning Race 3 in somewhat more brutal conditions.
A week after Pre-States, the front-runners Fayetteville-Manlius and Saratoga got to display their impressive arsenals of ferocious feet with big wins at the Baldwinsville and Queensbury invitationals respectively. But the biggest action would wait until the first two weekends of October with first the McQuaid and then the Manhattan invitationals. In the more WNY oriented McQuaid meet, Shenendehowa continued its nice early season run with a victory in the biggest race (AAA), edging a Centerville PA team for the win with East Aurora and Monroe-Woodbury taking the next spots. Abbey Wheeler was the top NY girl, finishing 2nd by a fraction of a second to Canadian runner Shona McCulloch. Jessica Lawson finished 3rd in the AAA race, while Hamilton's Sage Hurta was the third NY runner in under 17:00
At Manhattan, FM won its second straight Eastern States title after a few years of disappointments as the Hornets scored a crushing 50-125 win over 2nd place Pennsbury PA, and North Rockland took 3rd. Bay Shore, Monroe-Woodbury, Colonie, Guilderland, and John Jay-Cross River were just a selection of the winners in the Letter races. After a McQuaid meet where she settled a ways back, Jessica Lawson sped far ahead of the masses at Manhattan while capturing the Eastern States race with a record-smashing time for Van Cortlandt Park. FM's Kaitlyn Neal was 11 seconds in back of Lawson with the next best time at Manhattan, and three other NY runners who finished north of the 140 TR mark were Alex Harris and Katelyn Touhy of North Rockland in the Eastern States race and Suffern's Mary Hennelly in the meet's concluding F race.
By the time the county and regional championships of late October rolled around, the settings for the various end-of-season championships were taking shape. In the biggest of the county type meets, Saratoga dominated early season standout Shenendehowa in the Suburban Council and confirmed its usual position as the chief challenger to FM for the Class A title, though the gap between the Hornets and Blue Streaks was still large. Burnt Hills established itself as the leader in Class B early on, but late season surges by Shoreham-Wading River, Pearl River, and John Jay-Cross River pointed toward an exciting finish. East Aurora in Class C seemed to be the only fairly sure States winner. as Greenwich in Class D had Maple Grove and Tully chasing hard. In the NYC region, Notre Dame was a prohibitive favorite for the CHSAA title, the PSAL was a toss-up among many teams, and the AIS had Hackley favored by a little bit over Convent of the Sacred Heart. And as always, Immaculata was going to win the CHSAA Buffalo title.
After Immaculata did indeed claim the Monsignor Martin title for the Buffalo CHSAA schools on November 1, the next weekend set the stage for a number of meets to come. It ended with Hackley and star senior Julia Stevenson holding off Convent of the Sacred Heart for the AIS title and Brooklyn Tech winning its first PSAL crown in recent years. In between were 11 States Qualifier meets that were the season finale for the majority of NY's teams. In perhaps the two hottest contests, Saratoga dominated the Section 2 Class A race and slammed the door on state top-10 teams Shenendehowa, Guilderland and Colonie. In Section 1 Class B, John Jay-Cross River took a comfortable decision over Pearl River. A week later the CHSAA title in NYC would be decided as expected with Notre Dame outrunning St. Anthony's by 55-70. In the NYSPHSAA States action, FM won a tenth straight title by taking the Class A contest by a 28-77-110-115-138 score over Saratoga, North Rockland, Sachem East and Monroe-Woodbury, while FM 8th grader Claire Walters held off Jessica Lawson for the top spot.
In States Class B, John Jay-Cross River followed up on a 2013 Federation title by triumphing in its first visit to States with a 55-74-88 win over Shoreham-Wading River and Burnt Hills, as North Shore's Diana Vizza was more than a half minute ahead at the lead spot. In Class C, both East Aurora and its front-runner senior Sophia Tasselmyer repeated as champions, though this time by far more comfortable margins than in 2014. And in Class D, Greenwich captured its first title in seven years by knocking off reigning champ Tully and multi-times champ Maple Grove by a 53-63-74 score, while Hamilton's Sage Hurta repeated by nabbing her third States crown after winning her first five years before as a 7th grader.
The Federation championship the next weekend gave Saratoga a chance to top the leaderboard with a comfortable win over North Rockland and Monroe-Woodbury. Jessica Lawson and Abbey Wheeler continued their longtime partnership in excitement with another Section 4 top two sweep, with Kelsey Chmiel taking the third spot. But in a notable sign for the future, a young quartet of 8th and 7th graders including Mary Hennelly, Katelyn Tuohy, Guilderland's Emily Bini, and Tully's Brooke Rauber finished in the top 10.
The Nationals qualifier weekend at the Bowdoin and Van Cortland parks provided lively action but few surprises. FM and top finisher Kaitlyn Neal ran far ahead of the competition with a squad that also included Palmer Madsen, Sam Levy, Sophie Ryan, Becca and Claire Walters and Jenna Farrell. Saratoga claimed its 9th straight NXN berth as Kelsey Chmiel ran 2nd to Neal and was backed by a top 5 including Peyton Engborg, Paris Fenoff, Caroline Starace,and Alex Delnicki. North Rockland earned an at-large ticket behind the efforts of Katelyn Tuohy, Alex Harris, Haleigh Morales, Claire Tantillo, and Kerry O'Connor. Five at-large individual spots were claimed by Abbey Wheeler, Diana Vizza, Mary Hennelly, Mamaroneck's Lauren Chapey, and Sachem East's Alex DeCicco. At the Footlockers-Northeast qualifier over at VCP, Jessica Lawson finished a close 2nd to nail down one NY ticket, and Sage Hurta and Monroe-Woodbury's Kathryn Munks protected the final two berths at 9th and 10th to send a trio of NY runners out to San Diego.
December's Nationals action that began in Portland with NXN saw FM's Manlius squad pack 5 runners into the top 18 of the team competition and win its ninth title by a 55-144 score over runner-up Davis CA. Kaitlyn Neal and Claire Walters were the top two Hornets in overall 15th and 24th places. Saratoga frontrunner Kelsey Chmiel was the top runner in the team competition and 4th overall as she led her Kinetic team to 4th. North Rockland's Thiells team gave the NY teams a trio in the top 10 by finishing 10th in its first appearance at Nationals. Among NY's at-large runners, Abbey Wheeler completed a super three year stint of Portland visits with a 10th place, and Diana Vizza and Mary Hennelly took top-40 places.
The 2015 NY XC season ended on December 12th in a fitting fashion with senior Sage Hurta going out in style at 10th place in the Footlockers championship. One place behind her was Jessica Lawson, setting herself up for one last big effort in her own senior year in 2016. Kathryn Munks finished off the year for the NY girls with a 37th in San Diego.