What a week! Senior Elise Ramirez won her final dual meet race and was undefeated in dual meets for the season as she set a Sachem record on our home 5K course last Tuesday in our Senior Day meet versus Sachem East. On Saturday, Elise placed third in the Championship Race at the Brown Invitational in a career-best 5K time.
In her third race in eight days, Elise won the Division I Championship in a Sunken Meadow 5K career-best time of 19:38.96. Elise and her Sachem North XC teammates placed second in team scoring in Division I.
The Division Championship Meet has two team races – the Championship Race and the Team Qualifier Race. The Championship Race is made up of the top two teams in each of Section XI’s eight leagues. Four at-large bids are awarded to bring the race field to twenty teams. League 2 third place team Sachem North earned a bid based on its outstanding team average as well as its successes at invitationals throughout the season.
Being a NYS Class A top 25 team also helped. Sachem North had six top 25 performances in the race. Elise was joined by All-Division I teammates Mackenzie Coleman (8th place), Gabriella Mott (13th) and Krista Goodman (15th) and Amanda Carlson (24th), Kaitlyn Licata (25th) and Kaitlyn Goodman (36th) in the Championship race. Ward Melville won the race with 33 points. The North Flaming Arrows placed second with 58 points. Smithtown (69 points), Half Hollow Hills (110) and Sachem East (112) rounded out the top 5 in Division I scoring.
Only three days after its strong team performance at the Brown Invitational, it would not be surprising to see tired legs at Divisions. A tough five meet in fifteen day schedule (October 7-21) against state powerhouse teams Ward Melville and Sachem East and at Manhattan College and Brown Invitationals before today’s race might also justify less than stellar performances. This was not the case. Five of Sachem’s Championship Race finishers ran PBs (personal-bests) on Sunken Meadow’s 5K course. The two that did not missed by a cumulative four seconds. The same was true in the Individual Qualifier (Ind. Qual.) Race. Most ran Sunken Meadow PBs today.
Senior Brigid Rattiger led the Ind. Qual. squad race squad with her 24:06 time. The time was a season-best on Sunken Meadow’s 5K course for our four year senior. Julia Reilly, Kaitlin Martins, Allaura Dashnaw and Gia Carr rounded out the top five in the race for North. The top five in the Ind. Qual Race – like the seven in the Championship Race – represent the blend of veteran (Brigid and juniors Julia and Kaitlin) and rookies (freshman Alluara and 8th grader Gia) that has been part of our team’s success all year.
Sachem North was successful no matter how you look at the two races in one meet format. Second in Division I and 4th in the overall merge of all teams in the Championship and Team Qualifier Races. Not bad for a team that numbers 17 rookies in its 30 athlete roster. The North Flaming Arrows closes out its Section XI season as it returns to Sunken Meadow for the County Championship Meet on Friday, October 31.
-Submitted by Sachem North coach Alex Young