I was over at Van Cortlandt Park yesterday watching the Foot Locker northeast regionals. Shelby Greany was very impressive. If you haven’t seen the article in today’s paper take a look here. That race may have been the best race of her high school career. She took second at VCP in 17:37.7. I know she hadn’t been thrilled with her season to date, but yesterday she was phenominal.

It’s been awhile, but I think it’s about time for a new poll. I’m posting on location in Boston. With this weekend off I thought I would take a trip up to Boston with my wife to see her family. And I figured with the season basically finished and as we move onto to the indoor track season, let’s take a minute to look back at this cross country year.

Before we move on to the new poll, as has been customary we’ll take a look at the results of the last poll. At sectionals, it seems as 26 percent of you felt as though Suffern beating two of the top ten teams in the state was the biggest story of that day. I can’t say that I disagree – that was still one of the biggest upsets I think you could see at a meet like that. Pearl River winning its 30th straight title came in second with 15 percent. That’s an incredible accomplishment for that team. Irvington’s come from behind win over Dobbs Ferry finished third in the poll

Again, as selected by the coaches, this is the Northern County team. And as I will continue to mention – Dec. 12 the cross country all-star section will run in the paper. Also, on Nov. 30 if you get the paper you will notice that will be the day that the winter track preview will be published.

Below are the coaches picks:

Girls – 1^st Team all-County

• Rachel Sorna Arlington


• Brianna Service Arlington


• Rachel Miura John Jay (EF)


• Miriam Munn Brewster


• Chelsea Hanson Arlington


• Victoria Sanford Arlington


• Ariana Bottalico Brewster


• Christy Bak Brewster


• Carolyn Nasr Arlington

Sorry for the lack of posts it’s just been very busy around here the last few days. The problem with the fall and winter seasons is that they overlap and we’re working on previewing the winter sports, while writing the all-star sections.

I’ll try and post as much as I can so be sure to keep checking back. I’ll have another poll up tomorrow so come back and check out that and I do want to talk about the federation meet a little bit. But before we get into all that here is the Rockland All-county team as selected by the coaches. Again, The Journal News section will be coming out on Dec. 12 so get ready.

You can vote for this week’s best game face if you head over to our Gameday Central Blog. To vote just click here.

I suggest voting because Bronxville’s Caitlin Hudson is one of the candidates you can vote for.

Again, if you haven’t seen it yet I had an article in today’s paper on yesterday’s federation meet. It was a very difficult day to run and the course was in real bad shape, which led to the slower than expected times. I’ll be back with some more thoughts on what happened on Saturday and some other information on the season and as we head into the winter season.

Be sure to keep checking back for more information. Thanks for reading.

Here’s some quick info on the federation meet:

Alex Leuchanka of Shenendehowa took first for the boys in 16:21.8. Adam Doherty of Arlington took 6th in 16:39.7 and Nick Hughes took 15th in 16:53.1. Shen also won the team title with 93 points. followed by Burnt Hills (151). Arlington took 6th with 240, North Rockland 7th with 255 and Suffern 12th with 308.

For the girls, Emily Lipari of Roslyn took 1st in 18:15.4. Shelby Greany took 6th in 19:01.6. Burnt Hills won the team title with 69 points. Saratoga was second with 82. Pearl River took 7th with 255 and Arlington finished 8th with 259. Bronxville took 15th in 388 points.

I’m sure most of you have seen this already, but for those of you who haven’t, Rick Carpiniello wrote a story yesterday on Pearl River coach Dan Doherty and the team’s incredible success over the last three decades.

In today’s paper I have a short advance on tomorrow’s federation meet.

This is the team that was decided on by the coaches. The Journal News All-star section consists of Putnam County as well. That section won’t be coming out for a few weeks yet, but I’ll keep you posted on them.

Here are the coaches picks for all-country:

BOYS First Team:

• Sean Halpin- Iona Prep


• Manu Kumar-Yorktown


• Max Robinson- Rye


• Michael Dapice- White Plains


• Ilkyu Lee- Scarsdale


• Cord Sgaglio- Fox Lane


• Julian Saliani- Irvington


• Sam Kohn-Scarsdale

Editor’s Note- I’ve added some new stuff in the Class C section.

I wanted to let a little time pass by before I wrote anything about Saturday because there was a bunch of things that truly ticked me off. I didn’t want to post immediately because it would come off as an irrational rant and or thought, although it would have been highly entertaining, to borrow a phrase from poker, I was on tilt…just steaming. Plus driving back through the rain in Long Island with little to no sleep didn’t help either.

So here with some more time to relax, think and flesh out my thoughts and in a more measured tone, let me share with you some of my gripes….and then analyze some of the races.

So I got some requests for info on the federation meet. If anyone has other info than what I have feel free to add any info to this post. But if you want to talk about it you can go to dyestat.

The armory website has some other info. Here are the state rankings with a list of teams that made the federation meet. I can’t believe the North Rockland girls aren’t going. What do you think?

Here’s another link that talks about the guidelines of the federation meet. And again if you know anything else please feel free to post.

It was a chilly, rainy, muddy day on Saturday. It was a tough drive for those of us who didn’t have a hotel room (me). A lot of  sitting in traffic and listening to the radio, which was pretty brutal. I mean I like the fact that K-Rock is back playing music, but how many times can I listen to the same bands – AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Chili Peppers. I would have plugged in my ipod, but my wife decided we needed to be more fiscally responsible. So, we canceled our subscription to our online music store and I can’t download or synchronize my songs. I long for the good ol’ days of Napster.

Anyway, onto the meet. I’ll have some thoughts on the boys races and Matt will be talking about the girls and Bronxville’s state title and Pearl River’s near miss.

Most likely you will be reading this as you get up in Sunday morning (feeling a little sorer than you were the day before) or sometime during the day as you lounge around making it a lazy Sunday. Take a moment to look at the two stories that Dan and I wrote about yesterday’s meet.

As I mentioned before its going to be extremely tough for a boys team to come away with a victory. If you didn’t see the state cross country advance in the paper you can read it here.

I think the Bronxville girls are the favorite to come away with the victory in Class C. The team doesn’t have the best runners in the state, but Bronxville has some really solid runners. The strength of the team all season has been its pack-running ability and that should continue tomorrow.

I may be a few days late with this stuff, but the results are finally in. The New York State rankings came out the other day and if you want to take a look at them click here.

Also on the armory website, you can take a look at how Shelby Greany trains.

As I’m sure you’ve noticed there’s a new poll over to the right of the blog. As far as our last poll went, you were pretty accurate with the girls predictions. Most of you figured Pearl River, Bronxville and Ursuline would win sectional titles. However, no one voted for North Rockland and the team came within seconds from coming away with a sectional title. Although the the team lost that was still an impressive race.

First, I have to apologize for waiting so long to get this in. It should have been in earlier.

After watching five girls races and interviewing over 20 different runners/coaches on Friday, there just was so much to cover, even with 2000 words of space allotted in Saturday’s newspaper for myself and Dan, I felt like there was so much to cram and so much left out or unsaid. So now I will do my best to empty everything I have left in my notepad to give you more.

I think part of what makes cross country sectionals so special and different than other sports is that there is all these races from every class with both boys and girls, all at one place on one day.

Now that you all have had a day to look back on Friday, hopefully you enjoyed it as much as I did. After I spent Friday night dressed up as the devil (my wife was an angel, we thought it was funny) and Saturday I was left icing my knees after running up and down that hill about 10 times, I’m ready to talk about the races on Friday.

It was a crazy day. I don’t even know where to begin. I’ll be writing about the boys races, while Matt Ng will be blogging about the girls. Just think about it….two races were decided by a combined four points, one race had one of the biggest upsets you’ll ever see at a meet like this and another had a team that won for the first time in 33 years. Incredible.

When I showed up at Bowdoin Park I thought it would be an interesting day. It was a perfect day for racing and you knew a lot of the runners were stepping onto the line knowing that either their team had a chance to qualify for states or they had a chance. Alright, enough of me blabbering on about what a great day of running it was, let’s take a look at some of these races:

Stay tuned to the blog for more thoughts and stories from yesterday’s Section 1 races. Just like at counties, we wanted to give priority to writing as much as we could for the print edition of the newspaper, so we produced four stories chocked full of info and insight.

I wrote about Pearl River’s 30th consecutive sectional title and about Ursuline’s magical late-season run.

Dan wrote about Fox Lane’s ascendancy to a long-awaited sectional title and Suffern’s improbable sectional win against some of the the state’s best.

Here’s a quick review of what happened. I’ll be back with more tomorrow, but below I listed the winning teams and who qualified for the state meet. But I will say it was quite the wild day of running. If you’re a fan of running you would have loved yesterday. Here’s a quick overview of what happened: