Hamilton Qualifies 6 for State Meet
Terrible course conditions after torrential rains
by Myles Stryder
On Saturday the Hamilton harriers headed to Bowdoin Park to compete in the Section 1 Championship Meet. It was difficult to believe that the season was coming to an end so quickly. With all the cancellations this year, It felt like we had just begun. Like most of the rest of the season the weather was a factor Saturday as well. The day itself was not that bad, but heavy rains the night
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| bus being towed out of the mud |
before left the course in the worst shape that we have seen it in our 11 seasons of racing there. The course was nothing but mud, mud and more mud.
The day started out quite gloomy when Jackie and Alyssa toed the line for their meeting with Haldane. Things went from bad to worse after the gun went off. As the girls wound their way up the hills the darkening skies opened up, a hard rain fell and the autumn leaves were blowing sideways. It was some of the toughest conditions I have ever seen our team compete in. The rain and mud made for slow times, but that did not stop Jackie from finishing her season by
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| Our girls medal |
qualifying to run once more this year at States. Alyssa came up short today, but still managed to win a medal with a fine run on the tough Bowdoin course.
Luckily, things began to clear up as the morning wore on and by the time the boys went at noon things the weather was looking much better, but after 4 races the same could not be said for the course. Although we had trained all week looking forward to running course PRs, it was obvious that those were not going to come today. The downhill sections were so bad that rather than encouraging his runners to pick up the pace, Coach Aiello was urging them to slow down and not get hurt.
The goal for this season was to make Haldane
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| 5 guys heading to states |
race at this year’s championship meet, and that goal was accomplished. Though Hamilton came up short again, the Haldane runners were looking over their shoulders as they felt the breath of our guys right behind them. Dennis again led the way for Hamilton running a muddy 21:28. He was followed by Jason and Chris. Edwin was our fourth across the line at 22:20 and Brennan did a fine job at keeping our 1-5 spread a mere 1 minute 33 seconds. We ran 9 today with our freshmen Aaron and Jair getting a great lesson in what it feels like to compete at a championship meet. Tyler and Savallya both ran well also despite being covered in mud after both taking falls on the course.
And with that we come to the end of our regular season.
One more race for Jackie and the top 5 guys though as they continue to prepare for Saturday’s NY State Championship Meet and a return engagement at Sunken Meadows Park.
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| Tyler at the end of an excellent rookie season |
