The Harwood cross-country team traveled to Long Island on Saturday, September 10, to compete in the Jim Smith Memorial Invitational at Sunken Meadow State Park. Schools on Long Island are big, many with over 5,000 students. As these school teams were arriving they may not have noticed the black and gold uniformed Highlanders gathering in the shade of an oak tree, but by the time the races were over, schools across the island were asking, “Where is Harwood and how did they get so good?”
The unique format of the meet has races run for each grade level separately, with the top 25 runners in each race receiving a T-shirt and the top three schools in each race receiving a trophy. The freshmen run a short, fast 1.5-mile course. The upper classmen course is a challenging 5k with several hills, including a long, steep slog near the end of the race known locally as “Cardiac Hill.”
“I told the kids before the race that the runners of the valleys are not the runners of the hills,” said head coach John Kerrigan. “If they could stay close for the first 3 kilometers, they would be able to pass people on the Cardiac Hill.”
Julianne Young (10th place, 9:18.86) and Willa Yonkman (17th, 9:56.66) finished in the top 25 for freshman girls. Finn Sweet (12th, 8:18.63) and John-Henry Bond-Bardes (21, 8:31.10) were in the top 25 runners in the freshman boys’ race. Hannah Clark was the top sophomore girl, finishing 40th on the 5k course in 27:06.21. Brendan Magill was another top-25 finisher in the sophomore boys’ race with a 22nd-place finish in 20:37.84.
It was in the junior girls’ race that the Highlanders really started turning heads. Erin Magill started fast and found herself in third place after the first kilometer. Teammates Isabelle Jamieson and Katie Ferguson were just about 20 places behind. It stayed this way until the race turned and went into the woods, up Cardiac Hill. Then the Highlander girls displayed their hill-climbing strength. When they came out of the forest on their way back down, Magill was in second place (behind only last year’s New York state champion Katherine Lee), while Jamieson and Ferguson had moved up several spaces. And that’s the way they finished, Magill in second at 20:45.88, Jamieson in 17th at 24:40.16, and Ferguson in 18th at 24:43.76. “I passed a lot of people on the hill!” exclaimed Jamieson at the finish.
The senior girls went next, with the same story. Anneka Williams and Lily Clark both had impressive races and top 10 finishes. Williams finished fifth at 21:51.50 and Clark was ninth at 23:10.67.
In the junior boys’ race, Daniel Bevacqui (7th, 18:50.98), Anthony Palmerio (10th, 19:05.25), Jesse Bisbee (19th, 20:27.22), and Seth Beard (21st, 20:34.26) all finished in the top 25.
The senior boys featured Noah Eckstein (4th, 18:32.87), Colin Fennelly (17th, 20:04.21), and Tristian Touchette (18th, 20:11.85).
It was a hot day and the course was tough. After the race, junior Seth Beard said, “That was the hardest 5k I’ve ever run.” But when it was all done, Harwood had 17 runners that had finished in the top 25, more than any other team. Harwood had three trophies to bring home: the junior girls and junior boys finished second and the senior boys finished third. The senior girls finished fourth, giving the Highlanders four classes in the top four. Only one other team had as many top-four finishes.
“We had an awesome day against some of the best teams in Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester Counties of New York,” said Coach Kerrigan. “We beat schools with five times our school population.”
This week the Highlanders will be running the hills of East Montpelier at the U-32 Invitational.
