With a 25-32 victory over an undefeated Smithtown squad at Sunken Meadow on Tuesday, October 3 the Sachem East girls cross country team completed the dual meet season with a 6-0 record, earning them a 2017 League 1 championship.
Coming just three days after an outstanding performance at the McQuaid Invitational, Sachem East has now risen to No. 5 in the New York State rankings and is currently the top ranked Long Island cross country team. The ranking is the highest held by a Sachem East squad in the month of October.
At the McQuaid Invitational, held upstate in Genesee Valley Park in Rochester, Lindsey Dodenhoff (5th- 17:49) led the Arrows to a third place finish behind New York’s No. 2 Shenendehowa and No. 3 Liverpool.
Contributing to the scoring for Sachem East were Melissa Merone, Rachel Ruggiero, Kaitlyn Famiglietti, Bridget Abraldes, and Shayna Arrigo. Also breaking 20 minutes were Angela Consolazio, Rachel Weber, and Caitlin O’Hehir.
Demonstrating the best overall depth of the 255 schools at the meet, and perhaps in all of New York State, Mackenzie Murphy, Sabrina Mena, Anna Murphy, Margaret Atwood, and Chelsea Benedict all ran sub seven-minute mile pace and broke 21 minutes on the rolling three-mile course.
Sachem East has one major Invitational left on the schedule before the championship season begins in late October. That meet, the Manhattan College Invitational (held Saturday, Oct. 14), is the largest and most competitive in-season meet held east of the Mississippi River.
Sachem East will be competing in the Girls Eastern States Championship race at this huge festival of races that will feature over 10,000 runners competing on the historic Van Cortlandt Park 2.5 mile course.
Three days after the Manhattan College Meet (Tuesday, Oct. 17), Sachem East will be celebrating senior day by hosting the Tom Toscano Relays on it’s home course. Stop by the back fields at 3:45 to see Sachem East and eight other schools battling it out in a “three person team” relay format with each runner covering between 1.25 and 1.5 miles.