The cross country team continued their season Sept. 21 with their first home meet against Blair and with their second home meet WSept. 29 against Sherwood. Lots of parents and siblings showed up, along with the girls’ varsity soccer team to cheer the Patriots on. At the Blair meet, the boys lost by one, 29-28 (lower score is better) and the girls won 35-23. At the Sherwood meet, both the girls and boys won 41-17. 

Against Blair, six boys finished in the top 10 overall for both schools: sophomore Nate Riker (17:57), senior Jason Wang (18:28), junior Tyler Sauvajot (18:48), senior Surya Udayshankar (19:18), junior Grant Henneberger (19:37) and senior Tyler Bush (20:14). Six girls also finished in the top 10 overall for both schools: junior Maya Gottesman (20:44), sophomore Victoria Ketzler (20:54), junior Rebecca Vasconez (21:04), junior Ella White (23:48), senior Nima Munshi (23:52) and senior Mia Mikowski (24:01). 

Against Sherwood, six boys also finished in the top 10 overall for both schools: Riker (17:50), Wang (18:14), Sauvajot (18:23), Udayshankar (18:37), Bush (19:59) and senior Jordan Zhang (20:10). Six girls also finished in the top 10 overall for both schools: Ketzler (21:02), Vasconez (21:34), Munshi (23:13), White (23:27), junior Julianne Yao (23:28) and junior Jessica Winson (23:38). 

Coach Kellie Redmond said she was happy with the progress of the team during the regular season, but especially with the last two home meets. “It was nice to end on our home course and see the progress even from one week to the next. I am proud of where we are to date and can see the team getting strong and more confident,” Redmond said.

Redmond did acknowledge that both the girls and boys had to work on their speed. “We still have a lot of work to do in order to fine tune our speed and close a few gaps, so I am excited for a little more quality training and a little less racing in the next few weeks,” Redmond said. 

The team also competed in The Maryland Cross Country Invitational, the final big meet of the season, located at a private property in Shawan Downs, MD, just outside of Baltimore. This was the team’s second and final invitational of the season, but unlike Bull Run (the first), only a certain number of runners were allowed to participate in the races. The coaches decided on a 37-runner roster. “We determined the roster by looking at everyone’s performances in previous races and time trials,” Coach Jacob Buxton said. “The top seven were entered in the varsity race, and the next 10 in the JV race, for both boys and girls. I think the team ran great. We had two boys and two girls in the top 10 in the varsity races. The boys varsity was third as a team, and the girls varsity was second. The girls JV was the first place team in that race. Everyone was focused and showed good toughness.” 

The two boys who made the varsity top 10 were Riker (16:38, fourth/134) and Wang (17:04, nonth/134). They finished third out of 19 teams. The two girls who made the varsity top 10 were Ketzler (19:32, second/111) and Gottesman (19:48, fourth/111). They finished second overall out of 15 teams. 

Girls’ JV finished first out of 15 teams and were led by Annie Sun (sixth), Giselle Guillen (seventh), and Cayla Schwartz (eighth). Boys’ JV did not get a podium spot but did finish furth overall out of 24 teams. They were led by Zhang (19th) and Edward Sun (32nd). More results on this meet and all others can be found on athletic.net. 

The team’s remaining schedule is the following: 

Regular Season 

Saturday, Oct. 30: Montgomery County XC Meet 

Postseason: 

Thursday, Nov. 4: Regional Finals 

Saturday, Nov. 13: State Finals