2016 White Clay Creek Classic (Review)

NOTE: For the purpose of this review, the graduation years for the runners have been omitted as they are implied given the race in which they competed.

Full race results and times can be found here.

Round Two of Red Lion's 2016 Cross-Country season brought the team to White Clay Creek State Park in Newark, Delaware for the running of the 2016 WCC Classic. The meet was different from a traditional high school race in that the field was divided by grade due to the high number of students and teams competing. Scoring was also different; rather than each runner receiving one point per finishing position, the top 20 runners in each race scored points for their teams, with the winner scoring 20 and each successive runner scoring one fewer, ending with 20th scoring one point.

Race One featured the Freshman Girls and Boys, with Sarah Donaldson and Connor Hessler (both St. Mark's) winning with times of 21:11.22 and 18:06.85 respectively. Mae Willis finished the Girls' race in 29th for Red Lion, with Katie Rippon in 41st and Sarah Zhu just behind in 43rd. In the Boys' race, Weston Marshall just missed out on scoring points, finishing in 21st with a time of 20:29.69. Ryan Silver, Jesse (Boyang) Ma, and Marc Sherman followed in 68th, 78th, and 82nd.

Joshua Deitrich was the lone Boys runner to score 
points for the team (Photo: RLCA Facebook)

The Sophomores ran Race Two, which was won by Naomi Dawkins (Newark) and Connor Nisbet (Wilmington Friends) with respective times of 20:00.58 and 16:30.66. Katelyn Walker finished the Girls' race in 72nd, while Zoe Wilcox followed in 89th. Joshua Deitrich was Red Lion's only Boys runner to finish in the points among all four grades, placing 18th in 18:32.27 and claiming three valuable points for the team. Spencer Armstrong and Micah Pope followed in 64th and 94th respectively.

Josita Marshall and Jessie Silver both finished
in the points (Photo: RLCA Facebook)

Race Three saw the Juniors take to the course and Red Lion's Girls team did not disappoint. Lydia Olivere (Padua) won the race (17:54.24), while Josita Marshall and Jessica Silver ran times of 22:57.84 and 23:04.47, good enough for 12th and 14th and 16 total points for Red Lion. Varsity Girls' Captain Naomi Mengel followed in 37th in only the second race of her career, while Alternate Girls' Captain Anna Teather placed 56th. In the Boys' race, Jonah Lane (Severna Park) finished in 16:33.93 to take the victory, while Luke Sherman, Nick Yu, and Brandan Leauby represented the Lions in 85th, 107th, 110th respectively.

Race Four featured the Senior Girls and Boys, with Padua's Maddie Olivere (20:00.63) and Smyrna's Tosin Ibironke (16:53.55) picking up the victories. The Girls' Race did not feature any Red Lion runners; Alternate Boys' Captain Noah Pfenninger led the way for the Senior Boys' team, finishing 43rd with a time of 20:06.90. Following Pfenninger were Varsity Boys' Captain Benjamin Schneider, Calvin Pozsonyi, and Jonathan Huey, placing 53rd, 59th, and 108th. Huey's time of 28:47.80 is also notable as it marked his fastest ever time for a 5K race.

Of the 23 Girls teams that scored, Red Lion's 16 points earned the team 14th place in the Girls' team rankings, while Deitrich's three points for the Boys put Red Lion in a tie for 19th in the Boys' team rankings.