By Christopher Hunt
photos by Peter Carr/The Journal News
Full gallery from LoHud.com
HARRIMAN PARK – It isn’t often that a team loses one of their best runners and the following year, with mostly the same group, they improve. Guess we can call North Rockland the exception. With mostly the same nucleus the Red Raiders entered the season projected to be one of the top teams in the state and even still, they believe they’re better than people think they are.
“Right now we know what we got and where we’re going to be in the next month or so,” senior Nick Hughes said. “I think there are a lot of teams that don’t know us and some teams that might have us in their rearview mirror. But even those teams better watch out because we’re going to come up and pass them.”
Hughes led his team while they handled the field, taking 5 of the top 6 spots to win the Varsity 1 race at the Red Raider Run with 17 points at the Anthony Wayne Recreation Area. Hughes, James Naglieri and Brett Bernard went 1-2-3 with Hughes first in 16:26.26. Naglieri followed in 16:48.14 and then Bernard in 17:03.94. Charlie Lagos was fifth in 17:14.18 and Conor Mallon sixth in 17:33.76.
“We were looking to sweep the top five and get 15 points,” Hughes said, “but we let one slip in there.”
North Rockland graduated Chris Carrington, its number 2 runner, to George Mason University but where that could have crippled some teams, the Red Raiders came into these season carrying more depth than it has in years. “The lost of Carrington was big but we’ve really had a lot of guys step up and we have some sprinters who came out that have really picked up things quickly and are closing the gap.”
Juniors Nick Bien-Aime (ninth place) and Dylan Landry (12th) are both sprinters that became solid half-milers during the spring track season and decided to commit to cross country this season which has made the team dangerous through seven spots.
“Today we wanted to work out some things that we didn’t see in Plattsburgh,” said head coach Barry Baloga, referring to the Pre-State Invite last weekend where he said his team was a bit tentative. “Today we knew that we couldn’t’ run the same. Other teams that we’re going to race later in the season aren’t going to lay down so easily.”
The team still carries a chip from a disheartening loss at the Section 1 championships last year to Suffern that cost them a trip to the state meet. This season, Hughes didn’t only talk about advancing to the state meet but he talked about a shot at a state championship, which is a tall order with Section 2’s Fayetteville-Manilus standing in the midst.
“They’re going to have to prove that during the season,” Baloga said. “Our varsity might not even be set until the head of the season. They should be (confident), because that’s part of building a championship team.”
The girls team had a similar story. They also lost their top girl, Jackie Gamboli, to graduation and come into the season with a team that has no seniors and just one junior. Yet they took 5 of the top 8 places in the girls Varsity 1 race to win with 27 points. It showed the team’s resilience after dropping a dual meet to Pearl River on Tuesday in the first time the Class AA school faced the Class B powerhouse in recent memory.
“I thought the girls bounced back nicely from that dual meet,” coach Brian Diglio said. “They wanted to come out here and have a good show. This is a checkpoint for us. September is a month that we train though.”
Sophomore Alexis Hatcher led the way in second place, finishing in 20:17.86. Junior Jessica Falcon was fourth in 21:05.68 while sophomores Ellie Hekker, Kristin Schnalzer and freshman Kaitlyn O’Grady finished sixth, seventh and eighth respectively.
“We wanted to try our best,” Hatcher said. “We just wanted to show everyone that North Rockland is better than what they think we are.”
The race against Pearl River just gave the young squad a very early glimpse of a perennial championship contender. It gave them something to model after.
“Pearl River won on their home course, we wanted to win on our home course,” Hatcher said.
Washingtonville’s Lauren Hehir won the Varsity 1 race for the second year in a row. She finished in 19:45.89 and was unchallenged for the length of the race.
“I felt good the entire time,” she said. “I really wanted to work on the hills because I haven’t been good at them but once I got up the first one I was just like, ‘that wasn’t so bad.’”
Her older brother Martin Hehir led Washingtonville to a win in the boys Varsity 2 race. He won in 17:00.41 with teammate Vinny DiSalvo right behind in second in 17:06.16. Washingtonville won the race in 36 points over Brewster’s 50.
“We were just experimenting with this race,” DiSalvo said. “We wanted to get out easy and get over the hills and just finish strong.”
They expected Shaker to be in the race but the team dropped out the day before. Hehir also expected to see Yorktown’s Manu Kumar up with the leaders, but Yorktown also didn’t take the starting line.
“All the big people we planned to race against didn’t show up,” Hehir said. “That definitely took some of the fire away. Today was really just about the win.”
Ramsey (N.J.) won the girls Varsity 2 race led by Alexandra Clinton, who won the individual title in 20:10.26. They finished just three points ahead of Brewster with 68 after cramming their 3-4-5 runners ahead of Brewster’s fourth. Lizzy Rosenberger, Lisa Anderson and Katie Hall came in right behind each other 21-22-23.
Reach Christopher Hunt at chunt@armorytrack.com.