Boys' Cross Country vs New England Tournament

Score/Result:

The Taft XC team ran its second-best race of the season to place 12th at the NEPSTA Division 1 championships at Northwest Park in Windsor, CT.  The 3.0 mile course is relatively flat and fast, and the conditions were ideal.  Henry Conlon ran another very strong race for us to finish 34th in 16:40 (field of 98 runners).  He hit the one mile mark in 5:11 and did well to hold his place throughout the race, to give a sense of the speed of the course and the competitive field.   Han Bin Lee (17:17), Tyler Dullinger (17:22), Kramer Peterson (17:25) and Dan Rubin (17:47) rounded out our scoring top five.  James Tautkus (18:07) and Teddy Zoellner (18:09) were 6th and 7th for the varsity. 

In the JV race, Matt Wie moved up through the field of 155 runners to finish 54th in 18:08, setting up Taft's 9th place finish.  Within 30 seconds were Nick Ganek (18:15), Rory Ronan (18:26), Ben Tweedy (18:32), Robert Dettman (18:33), and Andrew Bowers (18:36) for a tight jv pack.  Wie, coming back from a long-term injury, and Dettman were our surprises on the day--great races. 

Overall, the day belonged to the Exeter boys (repeat champs, and they took the top 6 spots in the jv race) and the Deerfield girls (6 runners in the top 15).  Exeter's Kieran Scannell ran alone for the final mile to win in 15:20 in the boys' race.  The Taft girls' team had a solid day, with two All-New England runners, as Dana Biddle (11th) and Sara Iannone (12th) both had great races.  Full results can be found at http://www.coolrunning.com/results/12/ct/Nov10_NEPSTA_set1.shtml