Tartan Invitational: Scotia, NY
The Tartan Invitational saw no shortage of competition even with the Manhattan Invitational in full swing the same day. There were fast times laid down throughout the day and course records were broken. We almost saw team sweeps on both sides of the competition as a couple teams deemed themselves as having a slight edge on the rest of their fields.
Coming off of a similar formatted win last year, the Saratoga boys returned with their 8th through 14th runners to win the varsity race and defend their title. Gavin Burns was Saratoga's top finisher, placing 5th. The race was won by Schalmont's Antonio and Francisco Beltran, in 16:22 and 16:26 respectively. The Schalmont team placed 4th behind both runners up Scotia-Glennville and 3rd place South Glens Falls.
The Boys' JV race was won by the Ballston Spa team with 34 points over runners up Saratoga with 46 points, breaking up Saratoga's first place sweep of the boys' races. Michael Poirier was Ballston Spa's top finisher, placing 2nd behind Saratoga's Brady Tooker. Brady Tooker won the race in 17:45 and leading his team to that second place finish.
The Freshman Boys' race was won by the Saratoga team with a low 15 points, led by Ryan Bush in 2nd overall. The second place team was Colonie, led by Gabe Hall in 9th place. Ben Guerin of Ballston Spa flew off the start line to run to a first place finish and take down the freshman course record. The course record now sits at 8:17.
The Girls' Varsity race was won by the Colonie team over a close race with Schalmont, with a final score of 39 to 44. Colonie and the Saratoga team had similar ideas as we saw some of the JV runners of their team run up on varsity this weekend. The Colonie team was led by Sarah O'Leary in 4th place, and Schalmont taking the 2nd and 3rd places with Emily Pahl and Kerry Flower. Olivia Lazarou of Amsterdam was the individual champion of this varsity race, finishing in a time of 19:44 for the full 5K race.
The Colonie girls continued there wins with the JV race, sweeping the top eight positions. Madison Clarke was the top finisher out of the JV field, winning the race with a time of 21:58. Clarke led Colonie to a low 15 points over second place South Glans Falls' 50.
To complete the sweep, the Colonie team took down the freshman girls' field for their 3rd win. They were led by Emma Gepfert placing 3rd overall, and beat Amsterdam out with a total score of 27 to their 29. Amsterdam's top finisher was Kayla Sondrup placing 5th overall. Ballston Spa saw another individual win in the freshman race as Olivia Skylstad won her race, by a large margin, in 9:15.