After coming off a win at the Track and Trail Invitational, the Patriots’ cross country team came into the Landon meet on Sep. 14 looking for a win.
In the Landon meet, the team faced off against BCC, Charles E. Smith Day School, Whitman, Landon and Sandy Spring Friends. It was expected to be a close meet, and it certainly was.
For boys’ varsity, the team lost to BCC by five points. Sophomore John Riker finished in second with a time of 17:35.56, eight seconds behind the winner. Junior Mitchell Fanger finished in sixth with a time of 18:18.05 and senior Ben Shapiro finished in 10th with a score of 18:24.07. “Fanger, who finished second for our team, had his best race of the season,” Coach Matthew Davis said.
“Both the girls and the boys beat four other teams,” but “we were disappointed that we didn’t beat BCC.” However, “we closed the gap compared to when we raced them earlier so we are getting closer to where they are.”
For girls’ varsity, the team lost to BCC by 19 points. Sophomore Jessica Trzeciak finished in fourth with a time of 21:19.52, 20 seconds behind first place. Sophomore Adna Trakic finished in fifth with a time of 21:23.01 and sophomore Madeline Grainger finished in seventh with a time of 21:45.07. The team still has a long way to go to catch up to BCC, as the team finished with the top three finishers.
The team had a successful race overall and is improving by the day. “I think that our team had a very successful race at Landon and a large portion of our runners ran season personal bests,” junior Amir Van Gieson said.
For boys’ JV, the team beat BCC by 27 points. Sophomore Timothy Jiang finished in first with a time of 19:15.30 and sophomore Jacob Smith finished in second with a time of 19:17.33. The team dominated the rest of the competition, finishing with six runners in the top 10.
Again the team dominated the race, finishing with five runners in the top 10. “The team did pretty well for our first race,” sophomore Kevin Cho said.
The team’s next race is the Pacers DC/XC Invitational on Sep. 24, and is too late to be covered in this issue.

Ryan Ullman

Sports Editor