CHSAA Girls Recap
Wrap-up
The St. Anthony's girls were the favorites when they went to the starting lines as they came in with speed ratings that appeared to be around 93 and seemed capable of placing six or seven runners in the top 20. On Saturday junior Caelan Schretzmayer again led the way for the Friars with a 6th place finish, but seniors Kelly Parker in 8th and Kylie Maddalena in 10th made big gains, and junior Kiera Udell in 11th, senior Lindsey Schwasnick in 13th and junior Blair Davi in 14th packed it in at top to earn a commanding 48-83-102-103 victory in the combined results over NSCHSAA runner-up St. John the Baptist, reigning champs Notre Dame Academy of Staten Island, and Sacred Heart. The Friars' jump to a 96.8 mark in the speed ratings equaled about a 20-second average improvement for the top 5, and that was the winning ingredient at Intersectionals.
2nd place SJB ran slightly faster speed ratings than at NSCHSAA and got a nice 4th place finish from senior Sabrina Spezia, but the Cougars just couldn't get the pack of Brooke Bowers, Emily Hamel, Margaret Pappas, and Caitrin Crawson up close enough to Spezia to challenge St. A's. The story for the Notre Dame Gators was a little less clear going in as the question was where their fifth runner would come in behind the top four of Lola Dinneen (2nd), Giavanna Comerford (3rd), Alyssia Brown (12th), and Meghan Leonard (19th). In the combined results for the A and B races, the Gators fell back to 3rd although the fifth spot did better than expected. Sacred Heart was led by senior Marie Naudus in 9th whose twin brother led Chaminade to their win, and the Spartans finished 1 point behind Notre Dame. Kellenberg's 5th place finisher Margaret McLoughlin led the Firebirds to 5th place, and Archbishop Molloy sophomore Grace Murphy in 7th helped the Stanners take 6th.
The individual winner for the girls now has much more recognition than she did last year when finishing 2nd at the NY-BQ CHSAA meet and then claiming the CHSAA Intersectional win. Brigid McCabe of Notre Dame-Manhattan wears a green uniform top that looks pretty similar to the one worn by the Notre Dame Academy Gators of Staten Island, but on Saturday there was no mistaking the dominator on the girls' side as McCabe took a repeat title by more than 14 seconds. Though McCabe's time this year in a period of turmoil was 27 seconds slower than last year's, the speed rating was not that different and indicates that the course this year was running slower.
ND Gator sophomore Lola Dinneen in 2nd showed that she might be looking to capture the title next year that eluded big sis Sierra who also finished 2nd as a sophomore in 2017. The Gators' Giavanna Comerford led a trio of seniors in the next three spots as St. John the Baptist's Sabrina Spezia was 4th and Kellenberg's Margaret McLoughlin was 5th.