The Girls XC Team pulls away with a 1st Place win and five top 20 medals, better than they have ever competed before. The Boys XC Team places 5th, with 3 runners in the top 20. The rest of the 2022 season is looking optimistic for the WT XC program!

On September 9th, the WT cross country teams competed in the annual Red White & Blue Invitational held at White Oak Park. The race is a semi-flat 5k race (3.1 miles), that is two loops. The race spans grass fields at White Oak Park, with only one hill, which you run twice, nice and relaxing gradual downhills, and the rest of the slightly inclined sections which Coach Bruce Frey enjoys calling “totally flat.”

The athletes did not disappoint. Individual wins including two athletes placing in the top 10. The senior, Cyd Kennard placed 3rd overall for the girls’ single A division, with a time of 20:55:00. Cyd said her strategy, as well as the rest of the teams’ was to “Start out as fast as we could, and then get faster.” Additionally, sophomore Eli DeSimone placed 5th for the boys’ single A division, with a time of 17:06:00. For reference, this meant that they ran an average split time of 5:40 and 6:53 per mile, for Eli and Cyd respectively. There were many other individual wins for WT cross country. For the boys team, Sam Kuzmishin (18:06:00) placed 21st for the boys’ race, just outside of the top 20, and Pete Heintzleman (17:54:00) placed 18th and Charlie Routledge (17:51:00) placed 15th. In all, the boys team had 3 athletes who placed in the top 20, all who were underclassmen. For the girls team, sophomore Sarah Nixon (22:11:00) placed 12th with another sophomore Delia Brown (22:23:00) placing two spots behind her at 14th, and freshman Abby Weinstein (22:28:00) placed right behind Delia at 15th. The senior Abby Patterson (22:30:00) placed 17th, to round up the five girls who placed in the top 20 this year at the invitational.

(Cyd receiving her third place acknowledgement during the awards)

(Eli receiving acknowledgement for his 5th place win during the awards)

The team performance this year at Red, White, & Blue Invitational was very encouraging for the rest of the season. The scoring of points for cross country is done by taking the place of the top five runners and adding those numbers together. Whichever team that has the lowest point value wins the race. If there is a tie, then the 6th and 7th runners’ places are added to the point value. The girls team placed 1st overall (with 56 points: 3+11+13+14+15 [33+37] ), adding another trophy to the collection and maintaining their title as 2 year defending champions at this invitational. They defeated the infamous rival and fellow section competitor OLSH (Our Lady Sacred Heart), who placed third at the meet (with 88 points: 10+18+19+20+21 [23+24] ). Shadyside (with 124 points: 1+9+29+39+46 [49+59] ) also ran, and placed fourth in the girls’ race. The boys team placed 5th overall (83 points: 5+13+15+19+31 [62+78] ), just barely falling behind OLSH (4th with 77 points: 2+11+16+18+30 [62+78] ) and Riverview (3rd with 73 points: 4+7+17+20+25 [34+45] ). Considering the boys team’s loss of Lance Nicholls and Jonah Keller who were outstanding runners that ran and even won states together, placing fifth is a good start to bouncing back from losing former imperative members to the team’s success.

(The girls top eight runners receiving their winning hoodies)

The coaches Jen Bigham, Bruce Frey, and Kristen Hudder, are all very proud of the runners’ accomplishments and performance last week and are excited for them to continue to improve throughout the season. The wise words from Coach Bruce Frey said, “If you hit a home run in the first inning, you can still lose the game by the ninth. We need to win the game in the ninth inning. We had a fantastic first inning with the girls team, we just need to continue to run hard and well so we can make it in the lead at the bottom of the ninth.”