Green Hope Cross Country

The final invitational of the year for the Falcons wasthe Hagan Stone Classic in Greensboro.  Mostof the runners had not run on the course before so there was a bit of an unknown factor, especially as the course was not available for preview onSaturday.  The course can be a challenging one as the first ¾ mile is relatively open, but the following 2+miles are mostly run on a narrow, winding and surprisingly hilly trail throughthe woods.  Spectators also only get to see the start and the very end so the runners are on their own in the woods for much of it. 

The varsity boys started the day off by going for it and get out to the front of the pack early. The boys would go on to win the team title and beat 2^nd place Cardinal Gibbons by 20 pts.  Reed Blackman was the 1^st Falcon to cross the line (3^rd place, 15:58)and he was followed closely by Thomas Vo (4^th, 16:04).  Rounding out the scoring 5 was Justin Polonio(10^th, 16:42), Spencer Cowley (16:58), and Liam McBride (17:07). 

The varsity girls had been struggling a bit with injuries this fall and hoped to show signs of making a move as they head intochampionship season.  There were some good signs today, but the girls finished in 4^th place and had one ofthe top 7 not finish due to another injury. Leading the girls was Bailey Fowler in 14^th place (20:03),Kelsey Vogel (20:23), Natasha Abramowicz (20:38), and Tess Davila (20:56).

The Developmental boys team fully expected to be at the front of their race even though they would be battling some teams’ top 7 runners.  They would not disappoint as Brandon Morton (17:30), Arman Jahromi (17:39), Nicholas Polsinelli (17:42), Ben Cale (17:43), and Seth Young (17:49) formed a group of 5 scoring runners allfinishing in sub-17:50. 

The Developmental girls also knew they would be in themix for the team title and it was clear from the start that it would be abattle between the Falcons and Hidden Valley (VA).  While Hidden Valley pulled out the narrow victory, there were plenty of good performances--led — freshman Ana Cubillo (finishing2^nd and once again dropping her PR—this time to 20:55). 

The JV boys and girls raced in a combined race at 12:45 and each team dominated the team races as each easily took home the teamtitles.  The boys finished with a perfect score of 15 and the girls finished with an extremely low score of 18.  The 5 scoring boys were Jakub Kreuter (1^st,18:08), Zander Selleseth (2^nd, 18:10), Amir Yegani (3^rd,18:10), Hiromu Koyama (4^th, 18:23), and Brendan Adkins (5^th,18:30), while the 5 scorers for the girls were Katie Foppiano (1^st,22:10), Arshia Haq (2^nd, 22:25), Jocelyn Royall (3^rd,22:36), Regan Glass (4^th, 22:50), and Claire Miller (8^th,23:41).