8/28/2010
The NYA Girls Cross Country team competed in the Lake Region Invitational XC Meet, the first race of the season, on Saturday at Lake Region High School. This was our only preseason competition before the start of our regular season this coming Friday (9/3) at Cape Elizabeth. There were 7 teams and 53 runners crossed the finish line. Competing in the meet was Windham, Lake Region, GNG, McAuley, Poland, NYA, and Fryeburg. Out of the 7 teams only 5 had enough to score as a team. The race distance was officially 2.8 miles yet the distance is a bit suspect…
NYA was one team that fell short of a scoring position (to place as a team in competition 5 athletes must cross the finish line). With only 5 girls able to run we were at risk of not fielding an entire team, however, at this point in the season, safety comes first and when Morgan Scully made the decision part way through the race to stop to protect her ankle it was the right thing to do.
The remaining 4 girls finished the race in stellar fashion showing they are ready to begin a season of steady, constant improvement mixed in with some confidence that I hope will take them far into the post-season. Our first finisher, Sarah Jordan (19:28), finished the race in 7th moving up about 15 spots from her position after the first mile. She was followed about 30 seconds later by Hillary Detert (19:54) who also moved up steadily over the course of the race. Maggie Meixell (20:33)was about 30 seconds after that in 17th place followed by Hadley Gibson (22:19) who struggled a little with heat and hydration yet still was able to finish the race in the top half at 27th with a very respectable early season time. Girls who finished in the top 25 recieved medals and the team, if we had 5 runners across the line, would likely have finished 2nd to Windham.