WAPPINGERS FALLS – Aisling Cuffe decided that she would follow Suffern senior Shelby Greany. Smart plan. Greany is a three-time Foot Locker national finalist.
Cuffe, in her rookie cross country season, was on the course for the first time.
They zipped across the field at Bowdoin Park and started up the steady, grueling hills when Cuffe thought to herself the very thing that is making her the breakout star of the season.
“I can go faster,” she said.
From then on, the race looked much like the rest of Cuffe’s season: her running alone in the lead.
Cuffe won the girls Varsity III race at the Section 1 Coaches Invitational in 18:19.23 with Greany second in 18:53.98. The win truly solidifies Cuffe as a major contender in the state and in the Northeast. Cuffe is soft-spoken and timid but aggressive and relentless once she puts her spikes on.
“I just pushed up the hills,” she said. “I did better on the downhills too. I just went. I didn’t care as much about getting injured.”
Cornwall won the team title in the championship section of the meet with 70 points, one point ahead of Arlington. Ward Melville finished third with 74.
The most dominant team at Bowdoin Park Saturday was Pearl River. The Pirates won the Varsity II race with 22 points, going 2-3-4-5 with a 16 second gap. In fact, the team could have been even better Saturday. Sophomore Cheslea Kushner, usually the team’s top runner, forgot her competitor number where she had left her sweat clothes and needed to race over to get it before the start of the race. She made it to the start line just before the official shot the gun and never found a rhythm in the race. That didn’t stop Pearl River from being the best team of the day.
None of Pearl River’s top five runners are older than sophomores but they’ve showed the poise and maturity of a veteran group.
“They’ve been that way all season,” Pearl River coach Dan Doherty said. “They’ve all been into it.
They’ve put in a lot of work. We’ve done a lot of running. They’ve really done every single thing I’ve asked them to do.”
Kerry Guerin finished second for Pearl River in 19:35.08. Then Molly Shine led a pack in third in 19:49.09, Erica Guerin fourth in 19:51.61 and Kelli VanHouten fifth in 19:51.96. Kushner was ninth in 20:19.65. Clarkstown South’s Jessica Tobin had a impressive performance as well, winning in 19:22.85.
With Suffern and North Rockland also competing at the meet, Pearl River again asserted itself as the favorite at the Rockland County championships Thursday at Bear Mountain. North Rockland though, also showed that they plan to be in the mix.
North Rockland won the Varsity I race, beating Bronxville 40-57. Jackie Gamboli won the race in 19:45.54 for the Red Raiders, ahead of Bronxville’s Caitlin Hudson, who finished second in 19:54.42.
“It’s really big because the way we were looking at this race was, Bronxville is ranked 10th in the state and if we could beat them they we could really prove ourselves,” Gamboli said.
Gamboli also enjoyed a breakthrough for her season. She said she had grew increasingly disappointed in her own performances which weren’t meeting her expectations. But she felt great right from the gun Saturday.
“My season hasn’t been going the way I wanted to so I wanted to take this race and prove what I can do for this team,” Gamboli said. “
It was a mental thing. I was just putting a lot of pressure on myself. It wasn’t coming from anyone else, not my teammates, not Diggs (North Rockland coach Brian Digilo) but it was the pressure that I was putting on myself. I really wanted to just go out and run today.”
Diglio was mostly proud of the way his team responded to an off performance at their league meet, where they lost to Suffern.
“I hope that take away from it what I do,” Diglio said, “that they don’t have to be afraid of anybody.”
Reach Christopher Hunt at chunt@armorytrack.com.
photos by Tim Fulton
Pearl River, NY
19:53 average