November 15, 2009
Bronxville
girls, Young, Hughes rule
Will Springstead
For The Journal News
PLATTSBURGH — "Last team standing" is still a competition at Bronxville.
Sporting a significantly younger team than the one that won the girls
Class C state cross country title last year, Bronxville repeated as Class C
champion Saturday, winning with 41 points on a wet, muddy and slippery
Plattsburgh State course.
Individually, Nanuet freshman Megan Young and North Rockland senior Nick
Hughes won their respective races in girls Class B and boys Class AA.
Bronxville cross country coach Jim Mitchell said he’s got a friendly
contest going with the football coaches at the school to see which is the
last team standing. The football team won its state regional final against
Ellenville Friday night.
The runners did their part Saturday, with four of the five scoring
runners being freshmen or younger. Freshman Meredith Rizzo led the way with
a fourth-place finish in 18 minutes, 51.9 seconds. Senior Henrietta Miers,
recovering from swine flu, ran a gutsy eighth place overall in 19:23.6.
"With (Miers), I knew we’d be in good shape. Without her, I wasn’t sure,"
Mitchell said. "This was phenomenal. We’re so young, I told the girls if we
survive this year, next year we’ll be a lot better."
Bronxville not only survived, but thrived while running the last race of
the day on a course where every turn was an adventure and most runners came
across the finish line with muddy legs and shorts.
"You always think, ‘I’m going to die, I’m going to die.’ But then during
the race, something clicks on," Rizzo said.
Young, 14th at last year’s state championships, outsprinted Geneva’s
Christine Driscoll in the final 25 yards to earn her first cross country
state title in 17:56.6, a half-second better than Driscoll. She paid a bit
of a price, being sick to her stomach shortly afterward. Young downplayed
it.
"The fact that it’s a speed course makes me throw up," Young said. "I
wanted (first) so badly. When I was right next to her, I thought, ‘I have
to. I can’t let her pass me.’
"That little hill (about 90 yards from the finish), I was thinking ‘don’t
fall.’ I went a little wider around the final turn to make sure. It’s
amazing. I won states, my greatest dream ever."
Hughes was a study in contrast. After watching the leader fall with 100
yards left, he jumped up from third to outsprint Ward Melville’s Quinn
Raseman to win in 15:26.3. At the time, he was winded but happy.
"You go from third to first at the state meet, you’ve got to take
advantage of the opportunity. I can’t even describe the feeling," Hughes
said.
However, when he found out that Fayetteville-Manlius had beaten his Red
Raiders for the team title, 48-63, his demeanor changed.
"Not a lot of teams can say they took second at the state meet and are
disappointed," Hughes said. "We were too comfortable coming in and it came
back to haunt us.
"We got a horrible start," Hughes added, "and that just hurt us the whole
way. We did make it up, but too late. Fayetteville’s not a team to play
catch-up with. We’ll just have to go back and work harder for Federation."
Yorktown’s Manu Kumar took fourth in the Class A boys race, while Rye’s
Max Robinson was fourth in the Class B boys race.
By
Christopher Hunt
