September 29, 2010
Saturday was the 1st running of the SMAA-WMC crossover meet. The SMAA (a Class A athletic conference) and the WMC (made up of class B and C schools) all ran together in a huge meet at Twin Brooks in Cumberland. The girls race had over 172 girls finish the race from 21 teams. NYA placed 16th in a competitive field — 3rd out of 4 class C teams.
The heat and humidity were an unexpected change in the weather and certainly a cause for alarm for some of the runners on the trails. Some athletes dealt with the change in temperature better than others but in the end we, once again, were able to have a solid full team cross the finish line. Anna Jaeger, after a long recovery, ran her first race of the season finishing 4th for the team while Hadley Gibson made up some necessary ground on her personal best dropping about 3 minutes off her season best when we needed it the most. Sarah Jordan was unable to race and Morgan Scully had to bow out around 2.2 miles. That left a large hole in our normal top 5 but Adela McVicar was able to fill that slot dropping 4 minutes off her time from last week. Number 2 on the day was Maggie Meixell who struggled with the heat and a sore shin but persevered. Hillary Detert once again finished first for our team and broke the top 20 in a competitive field finishing 16th in a time of 22:01 (just 14 seconds shy of her time on this same course at states last year). Rounding out our scoring 6 was Alison Znamierowski who ran a steady race and is ready to make some big jumps in the weeks to come.
The girls are back in action this Saturday at the Belfast Invitational up at Belfast HS. This meet will have 66 teams who are racing on the state course as a preview. The competition will be the best we have seen, and probably will see, this season.
