Green Hope Cross Country

Hot and humid conditions impacted the times at the normally fast UNCW course for the Seahawk Invitational on September 8th. The Falcons once again, though, had a good day of racing.

The first race of the day was the Boys JV race. Cary got out to a fast start as a team, but Green Hope ran a smart race and easily won the team competition. Brad Pehr, Henry Pehr, Ryan Michael, John McGarrahan, Michael Kolor, Patrick Stylski, and Kevin Kronk led the team to its 2nd straight invitational team win (47pts to 82 for 2nd place Apex).

The girls JV team was not to be outdone. Julia England set the pace by going out hard early and before the 1 mile mark Julia Zwierzynski took the lead and hung on to win her 2nd straight JV invitational individual title. Theresa Enright, Brianne Vasarhelyi, Hannah Groover, Natsumi Koyama, and Julia helped the team to its 2nd title in as many large races—matching the boys JV team mark to start the year.

The 3rd race of the day was the boys championship race. As a team, the Falcons were never really in it and they finished in a disappointing 5th. Tom Nobles ran a great race, though, as he continually picked off runners in the 2nd half of the race and finished 4th. Alex Jeffs also ran a tough race finishing as the number 2 runner for the boys.

The girls championship race followed and the girls ran a decent race as they struggle to get fully healthy and finished as the team runner-up to a very good Cardinal Gibbons squad. Mo McDonnell led the team with a 5th place finish and Kristen Lospinoso (10th) and Allie Worsdale (13th) were not far behind.

After 2 races with no GH runners, the temperature rose to the point where the race organizers decided to shorten the day’s final 2 races to 2.5 km for safety reasons. The shorter races did not hurt the Falcons as both the boys and girls dominated the competition. Ted MacCabe won the boys race as he led the Falcons to a 1-7 finish (scoring a perfect score to match the perfect score the JV girls earned at providence). Jessica Wu outkicked a runner from Providence and the Falcons placed 6 girls in the top 8 to easily win their race. It was a good ending to a long day of racing. The next invitational is not until September 29th—Great American at Wake Med. It is an important three weeks of training ahead for the Falcons.