Girls Cross Country Wins Fairchester Championships

 

There would be three races: varsity boys, varsity girls, and a combined boys and girls JV (with boys and girls listed and scored separately).

 

The varsity boys ran first. Hopkins went into the meet with a 15-3 regular season record, with all losses coming to Brunswick. The scores had been getting closer as the year went on, so there was a possible "path to victory," but everything was going to have to break right on championship day.

 

Unfortunately for Hopkins, the Brunswick boys ran outstanding races, and several of our runners were not able to place where they needed to in order to make the race competitive. Some high points were freshman Nic Burtson winning the race outright, as he had the other two-all FAA races. Junior captain Jonah Norwitt finished 7th, earning all-FAA honors, and freshman Jake Wang was 11th, narrowly missing all-FAA and earning honorable mention instead. The rest of the varsity, Geroge Wang, Andrew Kindseth, Connor Hartigan, and seventh-grader Blake Braun, all ran hard-fought races.

 

The girls went into the race as the team to beat. Since joining the league in 2006, they had won every championship race except for last year's. They also went into the race with a sparkling 24-0 regular season record. Sophomores Maliya Ellis and Madeleine Walker finished in 2nd and 3rd places, trying to chase down the eventual champion (last year's FAA champion as well) MacKenzie Jordan from Sacred Heart. Freshman Elena Brenna ran a huge PR and finished in 5th, all three of them earning all-league honors. Senior captain Arnaaz Khwaja took almost a minute off her personal best to place 11th, earning honorable mention. Senior captain Anna Walewski ran in strong pack with freshmen Kaitlin Forman and Marilla Yu. When the dust settled, the Hopkins girls were champions once again, adding to their victories in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2013, and 2014 (Hurricane Sandy cancelled the 2012 edition of the race).

 

The JV races were exciting as well. On the boys' side it was really a two-team contest, with only one boy not from Hopkins or Brunswick in the top 10. Ben Sanger, Jakob Vucelic-Frick, and Eric Martin finished in 3rd, 4th, and 5th, with 8th-grader Ethan Woolbert in 7th, junior Ben Walker in 10th, and freshman David Judd in 11th. If the JV race had been officially scored, then Hopkins would have edged Brunwick. The JV as a whole ran very strong races, in many cases their best of the year, and the whole team has much to be proud of.

 

The girls' JV had an outstanding day as well. Even missing a few key runners, the girls placed 1st (Yasmin Bergemann), 3rd (Rachel Hagani), 5th (Arushi Srivastava), 8th (Liillian Tipton), and 11th (Grace El-Fishawy), good for 28 team points. The top runners from the rest of the field (i.e., all other schools combined) scored 28 points as well.

As with the boys, the girls as a whole ran very strong races, and they have so much to proud of.  Particularly gratifying was getting to see some long-injured runners, Tim Sullivan and senior captain Toella Pliakas, able to run, and run well, in their first race of the year.