By Jemma Kushen (III)
Girls’ cross country had an outstanding season this year. They placed third in the NJSIAA Group Championships (November 11th) and sixteenth out of twenty-one teams in the NJSIAA Meet of Champions (November 18th), ending the season in seventeenth place in the state.
Nikki Vanasse (IV) won the Group Championships race with a time of 18:45. The team then qualified for the Meet of Championships where Vanasse finished third, setting a new school record on the course with a time of 18:23.
Vanasse was one of few runners in sound health for the race, as many others were not able to finish; Anna Wood (VI) could not finish the race after falling, Ryan Davi (III) had an iron deficiency and could not compete, and Alina Irvine (III) finished the race with a stress fracture.
Despite these setbacks, the team pulled through to achieve remarkable results.
According to Head Coach Tim Grant and Irvine, those meets marked the end of a “great” and “very fun and exciting” season during which the team won the Newark Academy Invitational, the Shore Coach Invitational, the Valley Division of the Skylands Conference, and the Prep “A” Championships.