The Vikes await the sound of the starting gun. (Alex O’Connor’16)
Racing in the final meet of the season, the boys cross country team along with sophomore Annalise Grammel and freshman Regan Cornelius competed at National Trail Raceway in states on Saturday, November 4. The Vikes overcame the MSL, districts, and regionals just to make it to this meet and fought with every last ounce of strength to place at the top.
Competing as individuals, Grammel and Cornelius both capped off their seasons with stellar performances. Grammel earned a spot on top of the podium with her seventeenth place finish out of one hundred and eighty-three runners. Cornelius also demonstrated her abilities when she crossed the line in forty-fourth, still placing in the top quarter of participants.
Although the boys team accomplished the incredible feat of finishing third against the nineteen fastest teams in the state, the post-race heartbreak was palpable due to the miniscule margin of four points by which it missed state-runner up. Despite the disappointment, the boys’ achievements deserve a great deal of pride.
The boys headed into states ranked fifth. They not only beat that ranking by two places, but also finished in front of Leesburg Fairfield, which possessed the second place ranking and took the regional title from CA the week before on Saturday, October 28. Placing fifteenth in 2015, twelfth in 2016, and consistently not qualifying for states in the years before that, third is by the far the best CA has done in years.
Freshman Luke Nester along with seniors Nick Watson and Nick Robie crossed the line within seconds of each other, taking thirtieth, thirty-eighth, and thirty-ninth, respectively. Nester not only ran a PR, but was also the third fastest freshman in the whole race. Finishing within seven seconds of each other, senior Chris Heermann in seventy-third and junior Liam McCann in eighty-second sped down the final straight-away next and secured the last point-scoring spots for the Vikes. Junior Abhi Ramesh and sophomore Charlie Sabgir closed off the race for CA in one hundred and twenty-fourth and one hundred and thirty-third, respectively.
This has been a stunning season for the runners. Academy will lose an outstanding senior class. The team’s surplus of young talent should propel the Vikes to another successful campaign in 2018.
