The Taft girls’ cross country team headed to Suffield this weekend to open the season of competition in a tri-meet along with Miss Porter’s School. At the completion of the race, Taft’s record stood 1-1. The Taft girls had a great day of individual performances and pulled off a close win over a tough Miss Porter’s team. Miss Porter’s put one runner in before any Taftie, but shortly after came Lower Mid Stella Oldakowski. Stella was Taft’s top finisher for the day, placing 5th overall with a blazing fast time of 21:04. That time is the fastest that a Taft girl has run on the Suffield course since at least 2012! After Stella came another Porter’s runner, and then Taft’s second place finisher, Post Graduate Lucy Gretsky. Lucy ran 2.5 miles of the 3.1 mile course with one shoe, after losing her left shoe early in the race, and yet she still placed 8th overall with a 22:18. The tide soon turned in Taft’s favor, as hot on Lucy’s heels was Upper Mid Michelle Lian (co-captain) with a 22:30, and shortly thereafter came Lower Mid Annabel Pick in 22:59. At this point in the race, Porter’s had two finishers and Taft four, so Taft needed just one more to complete scoring. Porter’s did bring in one runner after Annabel, but Upper Mid Katie Bootsma (co-captain) sealed the win for her team with her 5th place team finish in 23:30. Taft had scored 25 points to 30 for Porter’s, narrowly earning a victory. Unfortunately, in the race against a perennially strong Suffield squad, the Taft girls were simply outrun; Suffield placed three runners ahead of Taft’s first and then alternated runners until the varsity scoring was complete for a final score of 18 (Suffield) to 40 (Taft). Though the girls named above constituted the Varsity scoring, eleven other Tafties completed the course and vied for points against Suffield and Porter’s. Seniors Caroline Shea and Kaitlyn MacDonald, both new to the team this year, were the crucial 6th and 7th Varsity displacement scorers -- if the Porter’s race had come down to a tie, their finishes would have determined the win. Upper Mid Logan Clew-Bachrach finished nearly simultaneously with Kaitlyn and will certainly challenge into the top 7 this season. A trio of runners, Upper Mid Maggie Robertshaw, Lower Mid Lilly Izmirlian, and Mid Sinead Connolly, paced each other through the race and finished within 10 seconds of each other. They were followed by two more pairs of teammates working together: Upper Mids Bojana Drca and Tania Tusnik, and then Upper Mid Kunchok Palmo and Mid Catherine Zhao. Taft’s final finisher, Coco Zhang, had the entire team in tears, proud of their teammate’s accomplishment of completing 3.1 miles for the first time in her life. Special congratulations to all the girls who completed their first race in a Taft uniform: Stella, Lucy, Annabel, Caroline, Kaitlyn, Lilly, Kunchok, Catherine, and Coco. Thank you to all the parents who came out to support the girls through their race! The team is looking forward to hosting 2017 Founders League Champions Choate Rosemary Hall on Saturday 9/29 for a dual meet. 21:04 Oldakowski 22:18 Gretsky 22:30 Lian 22:59 Pick 23:30 Bootsma 25:37 Shea 26:01 MacDonald 26:03 Clew-Bachrach 27:12 Robertshaw 27:12 Izmirlian 27:23 Connolly 29:25 Drca 29:27 Tsunik 31:37 Palmo 31:38 Zhao 38:11 Zhang, C. Varsity Record: 1-1