2021 J.V. County Championship Meet

 Miguel Leads the Way

Jackie Returns

By Myles Stryder 

It’s funny how quickly the season can slip away. It seems like only yesterday it was the first week of September. Then, in the blink of an eye, it’s suddenly the end of October. It sure looked like autumn too as Hamilton traveled to Woodlands for the final time this season. This trip was for the Westchester County J.V. Championship meet. After about 8 meets at Woodlands in the last two seasons, the Hartsdale course is starting to feel like home to the Hamilton Harriers. 

It was a perfect day for an XC race. The sun hanging low in the October skies gave the trees a golden glow and the fluttering leaves all added to the feeling of it being championship season. 22 teams competed and Hamilton was ready to run with them.

Gabby cruising down the hill

To say that our girls’ team has had a challenging 2021 would be an understatement. The team has been hampered by injury all season long, and not one of our girls has been able to run in every race. Today was no exception. Only two Lady Raiders made it to the starting line. Gabby P., who has been as consistent as anyone this season and after two weeks off nursing an injury, the team was thrilled to see Jackie return to the line up. Gabby turned in her usual steady performance running a 35:47. Jackie ran a cautious race being careful not to strain her shins and turned in a decent performance finishing up at 31:22.

Our boys team was able to field a full team of 7 runners today. As usual, the team was led by standout Miguel Gonzalez. Miguel has had an incredible rookie season; he finished his last race at Woodlands with a blazing PR of 18:30. He will have a hard time topping that time on the tough Bowdoin course in two weeks, but with what we have seen from him, I wouldn’t be that surprised if he did. Miguel was followed up by Eric finishing strong with a 20:33. Eric was just able to pass teammate Yahir who ran an impressive 20:35. Yahir has done nothing but improve all season long. Close behind were senior Jair at 21:03 and Yuriy who ran a 21:17. Yuriy has been very consistent on this course; his last three Woodlands times have been within two seconds. Had he not suffered a minor injury during the race he certainly would have run even faster today. Another noteworthy performance was turned in by Bryan Mirtil. A late comer to the team, he is making us all wish he had been here from the beginning. Running his third 5K in a week Bryan has seen his time drop from 32:21 to 23:28. This kid has talent. Seventh across the line was freshman Marco Morocho. This is his first, and he says last, season running XC. If it is his last, that would be a shame. He’s a tough competitor who always gives it his all. Marco also suffered a minor mishap during the race, but was still able to finish up at 27:31.

After a frantic period of running two or three meets a week, the team finally has two weeks to work on focused training to get ready for the Section 1 Championship meet Saturday November 6. Will Hamilton send any athletes to compete at States? Stay tuned.