Boys Finish 5th, Girls 7th at County Cross Country Championships
Posted November 8, 2011
In the final tuneup before next weekend's state championship, the boys and girls cross country teams continued their season-long improvement with outstanding showings at the New Castle County Cross Country Championships this past weekend. The boys finished fifth out of 31 teams with a total team score of 166. It marked the first time this season the boys beat conference rival Wilmington Friends and the first time in at least 15 years they topped St. Mark's School. They were led by Henry Weaver '12 who overcame a stomach bug to finish the hilly 5k course sixth overall in a blazing PR time of 16:15:06 - making Henry the second fastest runner in School history behind former State Champion Morgan Scoville '00. Senior Co-Captain Alec Hill finished 21st overall with a PR time of 16:59.83. The Saints' scoring continued with Jeff Rogers clocking in at 17:37, Riley McDonough with a PR of 17:56 - his first sub-18-minute time - and Co-Captain Davis Hammond, Kevin Dowling and James Craig all finishing under 18:40 meaning all eight St. Andrew's runners finished the course averaging sub-six minute miles. Together, Weaver, Hill, Rogers, McDonough, and Hammond’s performance helped produce the fastest varsity team time in SAS history—17:22.
The girls' cross country team finished seventh out of 29 teams at the Championships despite only having one runner in the top 25 — a testament to their team depth. St. Andrew's lone All-County honoree was III Former Caitlin Porrazzo who finished the challenging course in an impressive 20:38. Right on her heels were teammates Emma Porrazzo '15 and Aggy Barnowski '13. Together these three girls give the Saints essentially three #1 runners, and their strength and teamwork were on display again on Saturday as the three girls finished within 30 seconds of one another.
The girls seventh place performance was all the more impressive given that varsity stalwart Charlotte Bristow '14 tweaked her knee minutes before the starting gun and was not able to complete the race. While the team missed her speed and competitive fire on the course, they tried their best to make up for her absence by working even harder out on the race course. Captain Robin Kim '12 set a PR for the season with a very quick 21:45, and Olivia Decker '15 ran beautifully in her first County race.
Both teams are looking forward to the Delaware State Championships at Killens Pond State Park this weekend. The girls race at 1p.m. followed by the boys at 2:20p.m. — we hope to see you there!