5 Hamilton Runners Qualify for States
Boys’ race: lead pack goes astray,
Girls’ race: Kirstine Section 1 Champion
It was the best of days; it was the worst of days.
It was the worst of days… The Red Raiders headed to Bowdoin Park with high hopes for the Section1 Championship meet. Coming off a fine perfomance at the counties and being ranked #2 in the section, the boys were poised to make some noise and maybe put a scare into a heavily favored Keio team. Having never seen the challenging course the Hamilton plan was to lay back, keep Keio in sight for the first half of the race and then make a challenge on the way down the hill. The first mile went exactly to plan and then disaster struck.
The Keio runners led the lead pack off the course. In the blink of an eye runners that were in 18th,19th and 20th place emerged from the woods the unlikely leaders. After what seemed like an eternity, the lead pack got back on the course, but by then they had a tremendous amount of ground to make up. A Herculean effort by Arnold allowed him to get back into the race. Try as he might he couldn’t catch Haldane’s #6 runner who wound up winning the race in a slow 22:41. Arnold finished hard and fortunately was able to secure a spot on the Section 1 team heading for the State Meet. The extra half mile of running on the difficult course proved to be too much for the other Hamilton Harriers. Despite a valiant effort Hashem just couldn’t make up the disadvantage. The team results were equally shocking. Haldane, which was expected to finish in 4th place, wound up winning the meet, and Keio bested the Red Raiders for second place by just two points.
It was the best of days…The Lady Raiders, helped by the absence of Blind Brook’s team, capped off their season by all qualifying for next week’s State Championship Meet at Sunken Meadows Park on Long Island. No PRs were set on the difficult Bowdoin Park course, but Hamilton now has its first girls’ cross country sectional champion as Kirstine was able to cruise to an easy victory. The Haldane team claimed the girls’ crown by default, but we plan for them to have a much harder time next year when we return with a full girls’ squad.
