Girls' Cross Country vs Williston Northampton School

Score/Result: 19-40 W

On a beautiful fall afternoon, Taft girls’ cross country completed their final regular season home meet in front of a crowd of their  parents.  About a half mile into the race, Taft looked to have a comfortable lead, with Sara Iannone, Dana Biddle and Maggie Swomley running in 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd place.  It should be noted that if a team takes all three top spots in a race, they automatically win.  Williston is a tough team, though, and their top runners ran a very smart race on our hilly, muddy course.  By the second mile, Williston’s Devon Greenwood had advanced to third, while her teammates Hannah Lewis and Miranda Goh were moving up through a big pack of Taft runners.

However, the teamwork and determination that are so evident in this Taft team won the day.  Dana Biddle and Sara Iannone held onto the top two spots, while Maggie Swomley and Caroline Manly grabbed fourth and fifth overall.  Colleen Iannone  scored for Taft in seventh overall, while  Rashi Narayan and Livvy Barnett rounded out the varsity team in ninth and tenth place, respectively.  Overall, an astonishing 11 of the top 15 runners across the line were wearing Taft red. 

JV girls also won in unofficial scoring.  Kim Amelsberg battled chronically painful knees to place11th overall and first for JV.  Coming in behind her were Elizabeth Shea and Courtney Jones, who the coaches had asked to stick together.  They followed those directions so absolutely that they crossed the line at the same time.  Megan TeeKing, Amanda Roberts, Bella Ordway and Rebecca Bendheim rounded out the JV squad.  In JV scoring these girls took 1^st through 7^th place- quite an accomplishment.

Many runners were battling the nagging injuries that can be so common at the end of the season, but they all put in great efforts. In one other notable finish,  Nicole Lu took nearly 2 minutes off of her last time on the Taft course, a feat made more impressive by the fact that the course was quite soggy, a condition not conducive to speed.

We are away next week at Kent.