State X-C: Hastings' Thomas, JJ-CR's Wasserman, Arlington's Green lead area medal haul
VERONA — Gold may not have been the color of the day Saturday for Section 1 runners at the state public school cross-country championships but at the conclusion of the eight-race, more than 900-runner meet, multiple silver and bronze medals traveled south from Section 3 Vernon Verona Sherrill High School.
The area’s top performer ran in the opening race of the day.
Hastings junior Caitlin Thomas, who was 10th on the same course at last year's state championships in 20:01.1, ran 19:24.5. That was good for second place in the girls Class C race behind East Aurora’s Emilia O’Leary (18:42.7).
“I’m really excited. I didn’t’ expect it,” Thomas said.
Thomas was among the top few runners from the get-go.
Despite shattering her 2022 clocking, she said she didn’t enter the race hoping to run a specific time.
“My coach says not to make time goals. She says, ‘Just run it,’ “ Thomas said of coach Molly Guilfoyle.
“The plan was to get out fast and just trust herself and she did that,” Guilfoyle said.
Other Section 1 runners also got out fast and also finished well.
Thomas was one of four locals to gain a top-20 medal from the girls C race.
Bronxville’s Maddy Williams took sixth in 19:29.5, Pleasantville’s Clara Shingler was 10th (19:50.8) and Albertus Magnus’s Danielle List was 12th (19:54.1).
Bronxville, perennially one of Section 1’s best cross-country programs despite the school’s small size, finished third in the Class C team title competition, just two points behind Adirondack.
East Aurora was the easy winner. Its top five girls placed in the top 11 of the race.
Williams said she was disappointed to just miss second place but was mostly pleased.
“I’m really happy with our performance and a lot of us PR’d (got personal-record times),” she said.
Another local school, Section 9’s James O’Neill, took fifth in the team competition.
Erin Smith (42nd place, 21:14.6) was its top finisher.
In the 11-team, girls C sectional competition, Section 1 finished second to Section 6, which is East Aurora’s section.
Section 9 was seventh.
Bronze for John Jay-CR's Wasserman, Arlington's Green
Their reactions were starkly different.
Happy vs. disappointed.
But both John Jay-Cross River sophomore Sloan Wasserman and Arlington senior Ethan Green virtually flew over the 3.1-mile course in gaining third-place medals.
Green knocked better than three seconds off his state time from last year, finishing the course in 16:06.8, good for third in Class A. More impressive was the fact that was the fourth best time of the day among all 469 boys who completed the course in classes A, B, C and D.
The problem for Green, last year’s states Class a silver medalist, who said he never felt right during the race and was clearly disappointed, was that two of the three boys faster than he was were in his 107-finisher division.
The Class A win went to Nolan McGinn of Fayetteville-Manlius (15:48.7) and Smithtown’s Dough Antacky (15:56) was second.
Arlington was fifth out of nine sectional teams competing.
Section 9’s Monroe-Woodbury, led by sixth-place finisher Oliver Jibb (16:12.17), 11th-place finisher Shane Golio (16:20.4) and Gavin Catherwood (18th, 16:27.7) had tied Saratoga Springs for first place with 58 points with the normal five runners' placements added up. But it finished second when other placements were counted in a tie-breaker.
Section 9, which also got a top-20 finish from Minisink Valley’s Gavin Rossi (12th, 16:22.4), was fourth and Section 1 fifth in the sectional competition.
Section 1's finish surprised one of its top runners, Lakeland/Panas senior Bobby Mayclim.
Mayclim, who’d likely win comeback-runner-of-the-year if such an award were given after rebounding this season from injury and illness last year, was one of three Section 1 runners in the top 10 of the 107-finisher field.
Mayclim clocked 16:15.7 for ninth and Ketcham’s Connor Hitt (16:19.1) was 10th. (Horace Greeley freshman Ryan Sykes was not far off a top-20 finish, coming in 23rd in 16:34.)
“It’s crazy to have three in the top 10 and finish fifth as a section. The competition was crazy,” Mayclim said.
While noting he’s never satisfied and would have liked to have done a little better, Mayclim posted a time more than 52 seconds faster than he clocked on the course last year when finishing 30th.
He indicated he was well aware of the progress he has made since a turbulent junior season.
“I’m grateful to be here and to be in the spot I am right now,” Mayclim said, attributing that to “just not giving up the entire season.”
“I just persevered,” he said.
Hitt, who like Mayclim and Green, will run for a college next year but has yet to decide which college, was 24th last year in 17:01.2.
He said he’d learned from that experience and had reacted accordingly.
“I knew a lot go out hard,” he said, noting he held back and on the second mile “knew how I had to make my move.”
He passed multiple runners doing so and not only grabbed 10th in his race but was 13th out of the overall 469 male runners with Mayclim 12th.
Wasserman, competing at states for the first time after playing varsity soccer last fall for John Jay-Cross River as a freshman, was, unlike Green, satisfied and more with getting bronze.
She was one of the leaders throughout the girls Class B race and never faltered.
Her time, 18:45.9, was not only good for third in her 115-runner race but was 10th out of all 464 girls who ran and finished Saturday.
“It was hard. There were a lot of good competitors,” said Wasserman, who described herself as feeling “really good.”
Her race went to Bayport-Blue Point’s Sophia McInnes (18:00.5, whose Section 11 squad won the sectional competition with Section 2 second, Section 1 third and Section 9 fourth.
Sayville won the individual girls B team title. Local schools Cornwall of Section 9 and Tappan Zee of Section 1 finished third and fourth, respectively.
Among Section 1 runners, Pearl River senior Mady Moroney (19:34.8) was 14th, Tappan Zee’s Sofia Fenton was 18th (19:46.2), TZ’s Bridget Dunn was 20th (19:49) and teammate Cassidy Donovan finished just outside the medals in 21st (19:52.1).
Cornwall had three top-20 runners.
Sophia Semo clocked 19:45 for 16th, Olivia Cibirka was a breath behind in 17th in 19:45.1 and Kerry Murphy ran 19:47.1 for 19th.
Bronxville 2nd, Mount Academy 3rd in boys Class C
Bronxville, which will graduate only one runner from this year’s team, finished second in the Class C boys team competition, which included 11 squads.
As with the Class C girls race, East Aurora took the top prize.
Bronxville was led by Kieran McBride, who was 19th out of the 131 finishers, clocking 17:03.1.
Mount Academy took the third spot. Its best finish was 11th place. That belonged to Donovan Baird, who ran 16:49.3.
The best performance by a local runner in the boys C race belonged to Albertus Magnus’s Jake Harold. He ran 16:46.6 for ninth place.
Irvington’s Indy Minkoff was 16th (16:56.1).
Those finishes helped Section 1 secure the second spot out of 11 sections behind winner Section 6.
Of Bronxville’s team silver, coach Jim Agnello said, “They ran their hearts out. Most ran a PR (personal-record time). I couldn’t ask for more. … I’m very happy.”
He also predicted Bronxville will be “bigger and stronger” next year.
Section 1 2nd in boys Class B; Nanuet's Ethakkan 7th
Section 1 may not have won any gold medals from the 116-finisher boys Class B race, but it likely won some respect.
As a section, it placed second out of nine. And Pearl River just missed a third-place finish after being knocked to fourth due to a tie-breaker with Section 5’s Pittsford Sutherland.
Max Prunty was Pearl River’s top performer, running 17:13.4 for 25th.
Pittsford Sutherland’s Will Tempest captured gold in 16:09.3.
Section 1 had four top-20 runners.
Nanuet’s Shane Ethakkan finished in 16:26.6 for seventh place.
Eastchester’s Matt Thomas clocked 16:47.3 for 11th. Nyack’s Sam Gunther (16:53.1) was 14th and John Jay-Cross River’s Andy Condon was 19th (16:56.6).
“The race took out fast. I just needed to hold on,” said Ethakkan, who mentioned the race being pressure-packed and cold. (Temperatures hovered around 40.)
Section 9, which was sixth, got top-20 performances from Cornwall’s Oliver Jang (10th, 16:45.5) NS Goshen’s Noah Klugman (15th, 16:54.3).
Class A girls
The girls Class A (largest schools) race produced mixed results for local teams.
No runner from Section 1 or 9 challenged winner and Providence College-commit Emily Bush of Saratoga Springs, who logged the fastest overall girls time of the day, 17: 34.3.
Saratoga Springs won the team title. Section 9’s Monroe-Woodbury was fourth and Arlington of Section 1 was sixth out of nine schools.
Section 2, which includes Saratoga Springs, also took the section title. Section 9 was fifth and Section 1 sixth.
The only Section 1 runner in the top 20 was Ketcham junior Abby Kowalczyk, who ran 19:09.2 for 15th.
Section 9 also had only one top-20 finisher. That was Pine Bush’s Shaylen Goslar, who clocked 19:10.5 for 16th.
Monroe-Woodbury’s No. 1 finisher was Olivia Heim, who was 33rd out of 107 finishers. She ran 19:42.2.
A family of winners from Section 9 in D races
Last year,Tri-Valley’s Adam Furnan won the state Class D boys championship with his sophomore brother, Van, second and his eighth-grade sister, Anna, second in the girls championship.
Adam is runs for West Point now, but the state medals continue piling up in the Furman’s Grahamsville home.
Saturday, Van smoked the field in winning the boys 115-athlete Class D title in 15:58.3 and Anna, for a second straight time, was second to South Lewis’s Brynn Bernard. Bernard clocked 18:56 and Furman 19:08.3.
Van Furman’s time was a marked improvement over last year, when he ran 16:40.5.
“Adrenaline,” he explained.
“It was the adrenaline of being out front and seeing no one in front. It gave me a boost,” he said.
He indicated he wasn’t going to get on his sister for failing to also win a gold.
Quite the opposite.
“She’s got three more years – enough time to make them up. … She’s doing amazing,” he said, noting Anna has two silvers as a freshman and he was 18th at states as a freshman.
Still, Anna expressed some disappointment.
She noted she entered the race ranked first and said as a result, “I knew I had to prepare to run and to face the pain.”
“It’s okay, though,” she said of her finish, noting both that she would run next week’s state Federation championship meet (top New York runners from private and public schools) and that Bernard will be running for the University of Buffalo next year.
Section 1 cross-country: Bronxville, Arlington win girls and boys titles; Green top time
Other Class D finishes, including Pine Plains championship
Bernard’s Section 3 squad won the sectional competition with Section 9 second and Section 1 back in eighth place out of nine sections.
Section 9 had three top-20 finishers. Jenaya Swinger of Mount Academy, which was third in the team competition, was 10th (20:18), Pine Plains’ Violet Bliss was 11th (20:20.2) and Webutuck’s Amanda Interieri was 14th (20L26.9).
Section 1’s lone top-20 runner was Keio freshman Nana Tsunemi. She finished 16th, crossing in 20:32.6.
Of Tsunemi, who’d still be in middle school if attending school in her native Japan, Keio coach Gail Lozado said, “Everything is just fun (for her). She’s relaxed and a quietly intense runner. She’s methodical. She’s mature. She doesn’t run as a 14-year-old. … She’s really passionate about running.”
Tuckahoe, Section 1’s team representative, was ninth out of 10 teams.
Its highest finisher was Sofia Doherty. She was 70th out of 111, clocking 23:25.
On the boys side, Section 9 finished second behind Section 3 in the Class D section championship.
Section 1 was eighth out of nine sections with its top runner being Tuckahoe’s Owen Gjertson (40th, 18:17.1).
But Section 9 had multiple strong finishes with team-champion Pine Plains leading the way with three runners in the top 20.
They were Max Decker (eighth place, 16:37.5), Dan McPherson (11th, 16:50.2) and Jared Heggenstaller (20th, 17:02).
Section 1’s team representative, North Salem, was eighth out of 10 teams. North Salem’s best finisher was Connor Quadrini (47th, 18:25.8).
Nancy Haggerty covers cross-country, track & field, field hockey, skiing, ice hockey, girls lacrosse and other sporting events for The Journal News/lohud. Follow her on Twitter at both @HaggertyNancy and at @LoHudHockey.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: State cross-country championships: Thomas, Wasserman, Green in top 3
