Thoughts from sectionals…
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- November
- 3
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.
Class AA
This is one race I wish I could’ve written more about…Shelby Greany seems to be rounding into the same great form that has brought her to Foot Locker Nationals three times.
She shaved 20 seconds off of her Section 1 coaches time and said that she was capable of more if there were other runners closer to her. She clearly has a big race left in her legs and I wouldn’t be surprised if we see it next weekend.
Lost in the shuffle of it all was Clarkstown South’s Jess Tobin. Taking second place is a pretty good accomplishment if you consider how tough the competition of Arlington’s Rachel Sorna. She had second by 17 seconds and it’s even more impressive if you look at the merge. She’s only a junior and with this being her third time at states, she’s a legit contender for a top 10 state spot.
The drama in this race came from the team scoring…There was a lot of suspense with the Arlington-North Rockland result. Dan tried to score the race and he had North Rockland ahead by 1 point, but he wasn’t sure. Another coach had the score tied. After talking to a bunch of the North Rockland girls, they had it at them being two points down, so when the official result came down the pipe, they weren’t stocked. North Rockland to their credit didn’t make any excuses for themselves.
But without Katherine Hekker, it was amazing that they even were two points away from Arlington. In a way, to much less fanfare, North Rockland was the Ursuline of Rockland, a real young squad led by one senior Jackie Gamboli (Ursuline has Sullivan). Their talent immensely improved as the season went on. Each had a chief rival (Suffern and Bronxville) that they surpassed at Counties.
What was even worse for some of the North Rockland runners is that they missed out on going to states. If Arlington had one more runner in the top 8, Gamboli would have qualified. Let say Arlington pulls off a Pearl River like performance…with 4 in the top 9…then Jessica Falcon and/or Ellie Hekker could have made it.
Mamaroneck’s Gina Talt deserves a mention for having a terrific season which now includes a trip to states.
Class A
This was Ursuline’s race. They had a plan, waited back and executed it to perfection. All seven of the Ursuline runners finished in the top 20, with six in the top 13…Just phenomenal.
Katie Sullivan trailed Harrison’s Emily Singer during the climb but that was only temporary.
I’ve seen Emily Singer run before at the Somers invitational earlier this season and I didn’t know whether her early success would translate to a tougher course. But it did. A time under 20 mins, second place and she’s only a junior so the best is yet to come for her.
After a quick scan in the top 10 or so, with three Brewster runners going to states, it amazing that Tappan Zee took second, not Brewster. That Brewster trio is Miriam Munn (4th), Christy Bak (5th) and Ariana Bottalico (7th), who is only an 8th grader beat out a very good runner in Horace Greeley’s Daphne Tsoucas for the last spot to states. It come down to their 4th and 5th runners, with Tappan Zee ninth grader Alex Bello taking 27th, Tappan Zee snagged 2nd by just four points.
Class B
On my way back from the meet to the office in White Plains, on that hour plus drive, I was struggling in my head to strike the right balance in Pearl River story. I didn’t want to make it seem that they aren’t happy about their great feat, because they are, but they have bigger expectations. But I also didn’t want to portray Dan Doherty as bitter. What makes them great is that they expect more of themselves and that he expects more out of them (especially when others are saying how good they are). After the win, Doherty wasn’t that pleased because his many of his runners ran better 2 weeks ago at the Coaches Invite. But that is just the way he is. If you read my former colleague Chris Hunt’s piece on him, which was very well done, you’ll know that beneath what is a seemingly a gruff exterior, he’s has a great heart for his kids and their accomplishments. To be honest, he’s always the first to let me know when his kids achieve something or when something wasn’t mentioned or left out of the paper. He cares more than you would ever imagine.
Look at the merge and you’ll see how good they are, even when they weren’t as good as what Doherty thinks they could be. Chelsea Kushner was fourth in the merge. And only one second behind Sorna. Kelli Van Houten also ran very well.
The secondary storyline from this race is that a new group of great runners will be headed to states. JFK’s Breeda Mannion and Jessica Kendzor, Nanuet’s Megan Young and Deanna Felicissimo are that grouping with Pelham’s Margaret Larkin seemingly coming out of nowhere to qualify to states.
Class C
Okay, so we didn’t do the wall-to-wall coverage on this race that we did with Ursuline and Pearl River. It’s just the way it worked out. We had one story for Westchester and one for Rockland. But in no way did I ever want to diminish Bronxville’s accomplishments. They got five runners in the top 10 with Caitlin Hudson winning it all and the defending champion Tori Flannery taking fifth and she was only third on her team. That’s quite a show of strength. All year long Jim Mitchell would tell whoever was listening about how good his eighth-graders are. And yes, Amelia Phillips and Meredith Rizzo are for real. Bronxville has a great dynasty with 12 straight sectional titles and 22 overall crowns. They are just as much a threat to win a state title as anyone group or runner in Section 1.
What really surprised me was Sarah King from Dobbs Ferry taking fourth, ahead of Flannery and Irvington’s Annie Field. That’s pretty big for her, she’s only a freshman.
If you are still reading at this point, thank you. I am sorry for not posting sooner. Tomorrow go out and vote if you can. It really should be a national holiday for public participation. If you get a chance, watch the last season of The West Wing, which eerily resembles our 2008 election, in a good way. We’ll be back with some predictions and preview stuff for states. Thanks.
This entry was posted
on Monday, November 3rd, 2008 at 5:17 pm by Matt Ng. 
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Dan Marra began working for the Journal News this past September. He graduated from Manhattan College in 2004 and from John F. Kennedy High School in 2000. While at Kennedy, he ran cross-country and track. He is excited to be covering the sport that he participated in throughout his four years in high school. Dan loves all sports, but has, what some may say, an unhealthy obsession with the New York Giants.
Matthew Ng has been with Varsity Central and The Journal News sports department for the past two years handling high school beats such as skiing, bowling, girls soccer and tennis. Ng is a 2004 graduate of Syracuse University's S.I. Newhouse School with his major in broadcast journalism.
Casey Tolfree spent her high school career playing Section 1 sports at Dobbs Ferry and is excited to have the opportunity to cover them for the Journal News. After graduating from St. John's University, Casey joined the Journal News staff in December 2007 and has covered a variety of sports including basketball, softball, and volleyball.
Good Job as well bro
Good luck to ALL Sec 1 kids at states !
cya !1
Why is Class D just ignored? There was a great story about the boys class D race (a misturn led to a race from behind).
What other class had one school sweep both the boys and the girls team titles. What other class had a girl win the first sectional xc championship in their school’s history?
Time after time Class D is hardly mentioned. There are kids in D who won their section, whose team is going to states and they cant even find their name in any article about the championship meet.
It is just wrong to ignore them.
To small schools exist:
yeah small schools exsist but do you realize that Haldane (the team that captured both girls and guys class D title) had an average time(for guys) of 23:48…a higher average than 34 of the girls teams in the section?
Personally, I do not think it is fair that some of the kids (not all) from the class D schools probably jogged the race and qualified for states, while many of the kids from all the other classes had to actually work a lot harder for their win.
btw
24:48 was Haldane’s fastest girl….Jackie Gamboli from North Rockland…20:04….more than 4.5 minutes faster was the 6th indiv. for AA, she dosn’t get to go to states….so do not complain that your team wasnt in the paper, just be happy that you get to go.
thanks
class D is a joke and should be competed as an exhibition race in section one. until a runner worth mentioning comes out of class d in section one, i will have no respect for that race.
Class D was put at the end of the meet so everyone could go home early and not watch a bunch of kids who care little about the sport. Perhaps the Ossining team should have been put into that race as those kids disgraced a once proud program. 20% of the money spent by the Section to transport, house and feed the XC Team at States goes to a group of kids who can’t run a lick while they laugh about it and also never get close to winning a medal Sad stuff.
I hope P.King was there to high five each of them at the finish.
You do Ossining no favors by showing off yourself as such a hate-filled piece of waste. Hope you do not represent the program in any way. Too bad we can’t mute you.
As to the D class situation, the class size cutoffs are what they are and basically are set at C-D level for the small upstate farm communities. Schools have grown in recent years and Section 1 no longer has a large and competitive group of teams to battle with in Sectional matchups. But that does not mean that the kids on the few remaining teams are not giving what they have or that the coaches are not trying to persuade athletes to try XC and build up programs from the limited amount of candidates. On the boys side, Keio always beat other Sectional teams in the 4 years they went to the States, and the Haldane girls did not come in last either the previous time they went.
So why don’t we congratulate the kids and encourage them to better performances in the future rather than acting like Type-A multiple-name-disorder jerks. And yeah, I was there for them just as I was for the kids from our own team and rivals who are going to Sunken Meadows also. The kids deserve better than you.
P. King, have you yourself ever done anything worth mentioning in running? because you make yourself sound as if your sh!t doesnt stink, but i get the feeling that you have almost no clue as to what you are talking about. do everyone a favor and stop posting as if your above everyone else, or that your some sort of authority on these subjects.
P.King your moms needs to wash your mouth out with soap. Bad boy that you are. Not nice talk from you. It was nice for a few days when you were not pontificating. I am so glad that cross is almost over then you can hybernate until next fall. Enough said.
Matt, thanks for the great blog. It’s nice to see the kids get some acknowledgment, both in the paper and on the blog. In my book, whether they come in first or last, any kid willing to run several miles (much of it uphill)deserves a pat on the back. It’s kind of sad to see the sniping in the comments by the alleged grown ups here…I didn’t see any of this kind of negativity displayed by the runners themselves at Bowdoin.
Good luck to all those who move on, and well done to all those who have finished their xc season.
The Class C race was exciting even after the Bronxville girls dominated! All the rankings pointed to Pawling for a solid second, and Irvington was thought to have a declining team that was destined for third. In the end the Irvington runners ran extremely well and beat Pawling by one point! It’s sad that they were overlooked because of Bronxville’s very strong team and sure first place finish for the section.
I saw the Irvington Girls freak out when the results were posted! GREAT JOB! It’s hard when you have an amazing team in your class like that
Matt—overll, not a bad job. In response to “Class C was more than just Bronxville,” I did scratch my head a tiny bit when a Bronco booster, in a separate blog on this site, complained about a lack of coverage. Though it is most definitely deserved (aweseome team, coaching, etc), I can’t think of another group—year in and year out—that gets more weekly attention from the J-news. In contrast, check out the J-news coverage (article and blog) of the other individual Class C qualifiers—it’s virtually non-existant. It’s just the way it works out sometimes, I guess. Congratulations to all the terrific runners from all the classes and good luck at States.
Relax everybody, you don’t know defeat until you have been through what I have been through. I think the races are fun to watch, however the parents like P King need to relax and just enjoy the thrill of his duaghter’s accomplishments. It’s sad when people feel the need to belittle others on these sights. Haldane’s accomplishments will be worthy of a banner in their gymnasium, the football players there will not know the team average that won the section 1 title, just that they were the champions and get a banner, maybe it will help grow the program there.
I’m sure all of the kids will do the best they can this weekend so as not to embarrass themselves or their school’s.
Good luck to the normal powers, Bronxville, Arlington, etc….and good luck to all of the individuals that have earned their spots on the lines.
Mr. McCain—Will we see you at the race, then? It would be a good way for you to wind down. Anyway, you make good points. Perhaps if you had raised them earlier it would have earned you a few extra votes.
Now you give good advice, where were you when I needed you. I may now take up cross country coaching, any advice?
I think I should start off as an assistant to somebody with my personality, know anybody in section 1?
Well, Senator, based on prior experience, you might want to take baby steps THIS time around. Start, say, with a Class D team. If that works out, move up to Class C and up from there. Before you know it, you might build enough of a political base to earn an officer’s spot on the Westchester-Rockland-Dutchess Track and Field Coaches Association! This could give you the executive experience you need for a shot in 2012 ….
Time for the old man to take his plastic wife and leave her out in the desert with caribou barbie. Perhaps the last we will ever hear or see from the three of them. Yes We Can – America has spoken – PTL.
P. King I wouldn’t have guessed you to be a democrat, what with you being so old and full of criticism. You are a bad example of a democrat…..
i little late on this reply… i only mention the Class D schools to point out the fact that during the D championships the lead runners (who all run low 18s) were led to an incorrect trail. since the D schools are dumped at the end of the meet and there was almost no attention paid to that race it is easy to think they the kids “suck” or dont care. I wanted a mention that the time were “bad” because those kids ran a 6k instead of a 5k. The leaders of that race had to battle back through the end of the race to secure a spot at states.
If 1/2 of the class A race got mislead and wound up with times in the 23s it would be front page news, to explain the “horrible times”, but when i happens in d its just ignored and people are allowed to bash those kids who are doing their best.
If this comment system only serves as a platform for people to bash and insult, i suggest turning it off.