By Christopher Hunt
ITHACA – Aisling Cuffe faced the best field that she had seen all season. She just couldn’t quite figure out her race plan.
“I argue with myself all the time, if I want to sit on her shoulder or go for a fast time,” Cuffe said.
Cuffe chose the former. She decided the pace and controlled the race throughout on her way to her second straight 3,000 state title, this time in a state record 9:29.89. She slipped right ahead of North Shore’s Samantha Nadel and continued dialing up the pace. Nadel followed until Cuffe started to build some distance in the last mile. Her time bettered a mark of 9:31.97, set by Elmira-Notre-Dame’s Molly Huddle in 2002.
“I was either going to go out and take the pace or relinquish it completely,” she said. “I didn’t feel fast but my gut told ...
