Two of the girls teams finished in the top 10 in their races against the larger schools. The Frosh-Soph girls team took 8th, the highest Division V school finish in the race, and the varsity girls took 9th, also the highest finish among the DV schools in the race. Both good team results against tough fields.
The Frosh-Soph girls were led by freshman Julia Thompson and first-year runner, soph Charlotte Reider-Smith. Both were running
without their usual accompaniment of veteran runners, but both still turned in good times in a large, tough field of runners. Sophomore Molly Dicke ran a good race for third on this team as she led freshmen Loie Plautz to the line. Our fifth and final scoring runner was Emmie LeRoy. Freshman Bix Archer completed the team and ran well on a tough course. The varstiy team was led by soph Andie von Eschen (more on her performance below) and captains Sara Peletz and Lucia Calthorpe. Junior Hannah Rosenthal ran with Sara and Lucia for much of the race, but lost contact during the latter stage and on the final hill. Junior Heather Bourne completed out scoring five with another one of her patented finishing kicks.
The outstanding individual performance of the day was turned in by Andie von Eschen. Unlike the boys, who ran during the cooler hours of the morning, none of the girls ran faster two mile times than they had on our home course. Not surprisingly given the difficulty of the course and the heat. (Distance performance degrades by ~1%
for every 5 degrees above 55. Given that the temperature was 20 degrees hotter than at our time trial, it is impressive that runners came close to their earlier times.) Andie was only 2 seconds off her time and took a very impressive 20th place in a tough field; Whtiney Tse and Emily Hockett were within 8 seconds; and the trio of Julia Thompson, Raven Carson, and Cristina Medrano came within 20 seconds of their time. All ran extremely well. Julia in her first race without her older teammates and Cristina had one of the best finishing kicks of the day for us. Raven showed that she is a strength runner who does well on the hills.
Lydia Moog had another good run as she continues to look improved over a year ago. Senior Kelsey Schlueter, back on the team for the first time since her freshman year, did a nice job handling the course and the heat.
Other girls runners turned in good performances in their first big meet. Eril Smith, Katie Vestal, Jewell Sparks, and Jocelyn Mayoral-Ochoa had a tough introduction to invitational running and a hilly course. All ran in the JV race during the hottest part of the day.