2017 New Castle County Championships

Although the Winterthur course for the New Castle County Championship race is not usually a particular favorite among runners, we did our best to rise to the challenge. It's billed as having "gently rolling hills," which is a pretty accurate description of the first mile of each lap, but the larger hill that makes up the last half mile can be rather intimidating. As this is a two-lap course, it tends to be even more mentally challenging. We couldn't have had a better day for the race, though; temperatures in the upper 50s and a bit of November sunshine made for wonderful running weather.

The team post-race (Photo: Mrs. Jen Mengel)

We put a lot into preparing for this race both mentally and physically during the week leading up to it. We put our work in at practice every day, had a course walk-through (more like run-through) on that Wednesday, and some of us even had a bread-eating competition at the pre-meet spaghetti dinner on Friday (hey, they did tell us to load up on the carbs!).

For this race, the top seven runners on each team ran in their respective varsity races, and the rest of the runners competed in the JV races.

The JV girls ran first, with Sophia Spotts ('21) leading the way for Red Lion and finishing in 61st place (out of 193 girls) with a time of 24:58. Abby Phillips ('21) finished in 97th, with Captain Anna Teather ('18) following in 138th. Full results for the race can be found here.

The JV boys race was by far the largest of the meet with a total of 340 runners. Ryan Cooper ('21) finished first among the Red Lion boys and 97th overall, followed by Richard Turley ('22) in 101st, Nick Yu ('18) in 105th, Micah Pope ('19) in 107th, and Ryan Silver ('20) in 110th. Captain Brandan Leauby ('18) and Jesse Ma ('20) followed in 258th and 297th. Cooper, the first runner, and Silver, the fifth runner, finished within thirty seconds of each other (22:30 and 22:58) . For full results, click here.

The varsity girls race, with 165 runners, was the smallest of the meet. Faith Hollister ('22) led the Red Lion girls, finishing in 85th place with a time of 23:11 despite taking a tumble early in the race. Hannah Ye ('21) finished next in 98th place in 23:36. Captain Naomi Mengel ('18) followed in 115th with a time of 24:26 (a PR for me!). Cathy Nicholson ('21) and Katie Rippon ('20) also finished under 25 minutes in 123rd and 125th place respectively. Fiona Fawcett ('22) placed 134th, and Katelyn Walker ('19) finished just behind her in 135th (full results here). The team placed 19th out of 29 teams.

In the varsity boys race, Joshua Deitrich ('19) crossed the line at 17:56, placing 61st out of 203 runners and first for Red Lion. Weston Marshall ('20) finished next in 101st place, followed by Matteo D'Andrea ('20) in 136th and Spencer Armstrong ('19) in 145th place. Captain Luke Sherman ('18) finished in 158th place with a PR of 20:58 to round out the top five. Dennis Nicholson ('19) and Marc Sherman ('20) followed in 167th and 176th place respectively. The team placed 20th out of 32 teams. Full results can be found here.

MileSplit also has video coverage of each race. Check out the beginning of this video to see our girls team featured!

Coach Shirley speaking to the team after the race (Photo: Cathy Nicholson)

We're nearing the end of our season, with only one more race to go. We're gearing up for the States meet on Saturday, where the top seven runners on each team will compete in the Division II races. Coach Shirley has set some specific goals for our teams regarding placing in that meet, and I'm excited to see us finish out the season strong!

Naomi