Taft XC had a great day at the Division 1 NEPSTA championships at Andover Academy. In the very competitive field of fifteen schools, the rhinos got out fast and ran very well to earn 4th place in both the girls varsity and girls jv races. The top four teams are recognized with championship plaques at these final New England meets, so it was exciting to see captains Stella Oldakowski, Annabel Pick, and Lilly Izmirlian accept the 4th place award in a packed gym at Andover. In addition, Taft had three All-New England runners (top 20): Charlotte Murphy 6th, Kate Cicchetti 10th, and Rina Kurihara 20th. Charlie Brodhead (34), Sydney Grogean (37), Annabell Sorensen (43) and Stella Oldakowski (65) rounded out Taft’s varsity, for a score of 107 points, just five points behind Andover in third place. As she has done all season, Charlotte went out with the lead pack, moved up a couple of spots, and really looked strong hanging onto Exeter’s top runner all the way. Kate ran her usual steady paced first half, and then made her move on the big hill right at two miles to put two Taft runners in the top 10 - her best race of the year. Rina was in 15 place, just behind Kate at 2.5 miles, and held on to get that 20th spot. Charlie and Sydney traded the 4th and 5th spots for Taft, and helped each other throughout, with Sydney making a big move at the first mile and Charlie doing the same in the final mile, and Annabell and Stella both picked up a few spots over the big hill and last mile. In the jv race, Annabel Pick moved up steadily throughout to take 4th place, followed by Leyla Zhaksybek (17), Clara Piasecki (23), Brooke Wilcox (24), and Lilly Izmirlian (36) for a team score of 107 points in a field of 108 runners. Annabel had actually moved into 2nd place with less than half a mile to go; Leyla and Clara went out fast and hung on, and Brooke, Lilly, Julia Pellegrini, Tatsha Kumthampinij, Alayna Mariani, Haley Sharpe, and Molly Wynne all moved up in the large field with every mile for their best races of the season. Brooke probably passed about 20 runners over the second half of the race. Elle Carter and Emma Jacobi had our boldest races of the day, going out very hard and running beyond themselves for the first mile - and still finishing strong. The weather was good to us, cool and sunny, and the beautiful Andover course was pretty wet, with two significant hills, but times tend to be fast for some reason on this course, and nearly every Taft runner came very close to their times on the much faster Loomis course last week. It was a fun and exciting end to what has been a fantastic season. Full results can be found at https://www.gsrs.com/results/4388 Use the bold tab near the top (Girls JV Team or Girls Varsity) to find full individual and team results.