Saturday Sept 22nd
After an enjoyable team dinner and sleepover to cut down on early morning travel time the NYA Girls XC team boarded the bus to head down to Derryfield Park in Manchester, NH at 6am on Saturday morning. Surprisingly they were as awake as ever on the ride down and on the course walk. A cool drizzly morning gave way to sun and a bit of heat as the day wore on but the race conditions were nearly ideal – and the results show it!
The girls team was split into 2 for this meet since there is an entirely separate freshmen race of 2.1 miles. This left us 1 short of a full team in the varsity race as only 4 non-freshman girls were able to attend.
The first race of the day was the freshmen girls race. After a speedy course walk the girls barely had time to pin their numbers, get ready and get their shoes on. The warm-up was cut short but it didn’t seem to matter. Kate Hilscher ’16 started strong coming through the mile just a hair over 7 min. and continually pushing that pace up a challenging hill and then picking off competitor after competitor all the way to the finish. Her time of 14:46 is equivalent to just over 7 min. mile pace and is a HUGE leap forward in pacing and performance for Kate. To top it off she was able to finish 38th out of 170 girls from all over New 
England. Morganne Elkins ’16 started quick and pushed herself from the gun. She ran through the mile at just over 9 minutes which is also a massive leap forward from her normal first mile. She was running the race with an injured toe sustained last week, and, while we did our best to tape it up it was clear that it was uncomfortable the whole time but she didn’t let it get to her. Instead she pushed on for a strong finish in just over 19min. which is an average mile pace of 9min. That time is over 1 min/mi. faster than she has ever run and clearly shows she has turned the corner heading into the 2nd half of the season.
In the Varsity 5k race team captain Hannah Austin ’15 led the way for the team with a gutsy start coming through the mile in just under 6:40 and somehow finding the willpower in herself to sustain that pace for the entire race. Her push to the finish in the last 800m picked her up 2 more spots and she was able to cross the line in 20th with a time of 20:42. The top 25 finishers earn a medal in this New England caliber competition. Hannah earned her medal in style with a personal best of over 1 min. This is the first time Hannah has ever averaged under 7min/mi in a full 5k and to do so by running 6:40s on such a challenging course (while sick) is unbelievable. Next up for NYA was Maddie Cutten ’15 who also pulled out a shocking race. Maddie went through the first mile in just over 8 minutes (when she normally starts somewhere in the 9s) and was able to push through all the hills on the course and maintain position all the way through to the finish. In the last stretch Maddie was even able to find an extra burst to pick off a few more girls. Her time of 25:40 is that of an entirely different runner. She ran her best by almost 2 minutes and looks to only be getting stronger as we head down the stretch into championship season. Abbie Hinchman ’15 ran alongside Maddie for a large chunk of the race as 
they came through both the 1 mile and 2 mile together. Abbie has long been shooting to average 9 min./mi as a goal in each race but today she was able to smash that barrier and ran at 8:30 pace. She laid it all out and it certainly paid off as finished in 26:30. Rhiannon Ramsey-Brimberg ’15 ran her first ever XC race of the season today (not an race to have as your first meet with 200 girls on the starting line) and ran admirably. She toughed out some difficult sections and responded well to direction as she pushed along the course to average right around 10 min/mi pace which, for her first race, says to me she will be dropping those times quickly.
As a coach I had goose bumps more often than I would like to admit during that race. The girls stepped up their game in a big way today and I couldn’t be prouder. Next week we are back in action at the Festival of Champions up in Belfast, ME where we get to preview the site of the state championship meet. Hope to see you there!
Full Results from the freshmen race
