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| Some runners from top-rated Greenwich (left-to-right) ... Chelsea Moorehouse, Emily Fung, Chelsea Borbolla and Brittania O'Keefe (photo courtesy Linda Gifford) | Ashley Fung (Emily's twin sister) (Greenwich) | Klara & Sophie Varosy (Greenwich) |
Identifying Some Top Class C Girls Teams ... Starting with last year's final team rankings (by Dan Doherty) and the results of the State Class Championships -- due to the new five class system in 2004, some teams move out of Class C (to Class B) and some teams move into Class C (from Class D) ... four of the eight top ranked Class C teams move to Class B (Saranac Lake, Bayport-Blue Point, South Jefferson and Broadalbin-Perth) ... four of the seven top ranked Class D teams move into Class C (Bronxville, Thomas A. Edison (also known as Elmira Heights), Seton Catholic (Section 4), and Tully) ... for pre-season consideration, teams with significant graduation loss are not included.
Greenwich (Section 2) is an obvious addition because a number of runners from Argyle transferred to Greenwich in the spring of 2004 ... Argyle was State Class D champion, 2nd at Federations and the #2 ranked team in the northeast US.
Below are two tables of results and statistics ... One table has some relevant results from the State and Federation Meets ... the other table lists some available track performances for returning runners ... Including some additional stats, here is an approximate relationship of team strength based on relative average time for five returning runners (meaning I assigned 20:00 to Greenwich and simply added time differences to the other teams):
Relative Team
Average Time
Greenwich 20:00
Skaneateles 20:24
Canastota 20:45
Sullivan West 20:58
Sauquoit Valley 21:03
Thomas A. Edison 21:04Experience has
shown that new runners (runners that did not run varsity last year,
usually incoming young runners) can have a big impact on girl's team
strength ... it is not considered in the average times ... Also
Note: last year's times are "last year's times" ... a lot can
change over the course of a year, but last year's times are useful for
pre-season analysis.Here are some brief thoughts on various teams ... Bronxville is included because they can be expected to field a competitive team:
Greenwich ... Greenwich competed as a Class D team in 2003 ... they finished sixth in the Section 2 championship (which was won easily by Argyle) ... their top three runners return, and top returning runner (Chelsea Borbolla) qualified for States as an individual last year ... The big difference this year is the transfer of runners from nearby Argyle to Greenwich (see related article) ... the transfers include Emily Fung, Ashley Fung, Klara Varosy, Sophie Varosy, Brittania O'Keefe, Chelsea Moorehouse and Samantha Valentine ... Collectively, their XC performances indicate that Greenwich is the pre-season favorite in Class C.
Skaneateles ... Skaneateles is the defending State champion in Class D ... two good runners were lost to graduation (Julie Lynch and Erika Geihe), but returning seniors Jessica O'Neill and Zandra Walton are outstanding runners ... Walton is capable of running much faster than she did at last year's States or Feds, so her improvement can be expected to help lower the Skaneateles average time ... Skaneateles also returns three talented sophomores in Hannah Waite, Rachel Vaivoda and Stephanie Searing ... Add in some potentially good runners from the junior high team (such as Christina Homeyer (1500m-5:22.6) and Beatrice Walton), and Coach Jack Reed has hopes of repeating as State champion.
Bronxville ... Bronxville competed as a Class D team in 2003 (they finished 3rd to Argyle and Beaver River at States) ... Coach Jim Mitchell always has a good team in XC and track ... Bronxville has two outstanding returning runners in junior Amanda Hudson and freshman Emma Clarke ... Somers' Coach Tim Fulton wrote the following about Bronxville in his pre-season for Section One, "On paper, it may look like the Bronco's will be a little down, but with Hudson and Clark's progress over the past year as well as a slew of talented 7th and 8th graders coming in, look for Bronxville to be one of the tops in the state again".
Sauquoit Valley ... Sauquoit loses no sectional runners to graduation ... returning sophomore Samantha Stedman and junior Carly Calogero are excellent runners ... Calogero has placed in the top 16 at States in the past three years ... and Stedman (who showed big improvement during track) could be one of the top five runners in the State (Class C) ... Although Sauquoit has some other decent returning runners, Skaneateles has a significant overall advantage ... BUT, add in the consideration of "new runners" - it was recently been pointed out to me that Sauquoit had an outstanding junior high team of 7th and 8th graders ... Sauquoit easily won the CSC League Modified Championship by placing 6 runners in the top 12 finishers (with some good finishing times) ... It will be interesting to see the effect at the varsity level this year.
Canastota ... Canastota returns their entire sectional team which was very young last year (four 8th-grades, a 7th grader, a sophomore and a junior) ... Canastota has been hampered by injuries in the past two XC seasons, so they could be very good.
Sullivan West ... Sullivan West returns their top six finishers from States, so they should be a good team this coming season ... They won their division of the Tully Invitational last year.