After racing neck and neck the entire race, Union Catholic senior Jimmy Wischusen took the edge over the Blue Devils. Tearing down the home stretch with no one else in sight, Wischusen demolished the Warinanco Park course with a time of 15 minutes 11 seconds. Westfield senior captain Avery Keith placed second with a time of 15:41.
The boys yesterday had 5 runners, including Keith, senior captain Jimmy Gildea, senior captain Tage Mehta, senior Alex Valencia, and senior captain Eamon Mason, all who finished within the top 10 times for this Union County Tournament championship meet. Despite the team breaking the course record for this meet, it was not enough for the boys to clinch first place. Head coach Christopher Tafelski said, “I think our guys tightened up and panicked a little, so I think there’s some things that we can learn from, making adjustments mid-race and things like that. There are some quality takes for us that we can apply going forward.”
The Blue Devils primary goal was to work on their pack running for this meet. Unfortunately, they fell short of this goal after the first mile. “It’s really hard to run races alone so having your teammates with you is really, really important,” said Keith. “We kind of failed, we didn’t do a great job with our pack running this week but that’s definitely going to be a goal and something to improve on for next week.”
Mehta shared a similar feeling: “If someone falls off on our team, it’s up to us to step up and fill that gap, and we just need to be able to do that better.”
After an impressive start to the season at the Holmdel and Bowdoin courses, the boys had a lot of pressure on their backs. With a sixth place in the nation title to maintain and the North 2, Group 4 Sectional Tournament meet approaching, this county championship was an important one to capitalize on.
Although the boys performance was not up to their expectations, the girls team had an impressive race. The girls took third place, led by freshman Anna Youseff ranking 10th place with a time of 19:32. Youseff was followed by senior captain Lina Wright in 14th place, junior Emma Pranke in 17th place, and senior captain Grace Lisnock in 19th place.
Even with these results, Union Catholic still dominated the course, winning the girls race in addition to the boys race. Union Catholic controlled the meet with their pack running, securing the top six times for the girls race.
For her first cross country season for Westfield, Youseff has quickly made a name for herself. She has been a key component to the girls cross country season. “I thought that we did well,” said head coach Joseph Berardi. “We ran here last year, and our team average is probably going to be about 30 to 40 seconds faster than the team last year. There were some nice drops.”
Senior captain Grace Lisnock said, “I think the team did great. I think it was a great job all around regardless of where we placed today.”
It was clear that every runner put their best effort into the race yesterday. Senior captain Belen Arbelaez said, “A lot of underclassmen have really contributed to the varsity squad this year and the JV squad, we have a great freshman team too.” With all of this talent, the future of the girls cross country team looks to be heading in the right direction.
The boys and girls will both be racing next at the North 2, Group 4 Sectional Tournament meet on Oct. 28 at 9 a.m. at the Greystone Park.
