2018 New Castle County Championships

Saturday, November 3rd was the New Castle Country Championships. The races were held at the Winterthur Estate. We ran our best despite the challenge of a hilly, two-lap course. The windy weather may have presented even more of a difficulty, but it also made for some cooler temperatures. In this race, the top six boys and girls ran in their respective varsity races, and we entered four boys in the JV boys' race.

The JV boys' race was the first race we in which Red Lion competed. Ryan Cooper ('21) finished in 22:00 and 153rd place overall. This time was only two seconds slower than Cooper's all-time personal best. Richard Turley ('22) finished in 250th place overall with a time of 24:00, and Adam Rao ('20) finished in 24:31 and came in 262nd place. John Cusatis ('22) finished in 28:42, putting him in 336th place. Full results can be found here. Unfortunately, the JV boys' race results are not accurate according to our runners and Coach Shirley, so the actual times and places of our runners may have been different than those that were recorded and published online.

The varsity girls' race was the next. Faith Hollister ('22) finished in 23:15 and 73rd place overall. Hannah Ye ('21) followed in 24:21 and 98th place. Abi Phillips ('21) finished in 25:30 and 120th place overall, and Captain Katelyn Walker ('19) followed six places behind her in 25:44. Fiona Fawcett ('22) ran 26:41 and placed 148th, and Katie Rippon followed in 154th place. Full results can be found here. Red Lion finished in 20th place overall.

The start of the varsity girls' race. (Photo: Mr. Bryan Deitrich)

The varsity boys' race was the last of the meet. Joshua Deitrich ('19) finished 56th overall, running 18:42. Dennis Nicholson ('19) finished in 20:34 and 131st place. Andrew Tanyous ('22) finished in 157th place, and Marc Sherman ('20) followed ten places behind him. Michael Gasorek ('22) and Captain Micah Pope ('19) finished the race in 178th and 193rd places, respectively. Full race results can be found here. The Red Lion boys' team finished in 24th place overall.

Joshua Deitrich ('19) finished the race in a time of 18:42. (Photo: Mr. Bryan Deitrich)

This was a challenging race, but many of our runners posted solid times. After the race, we stopped at Coach Boyd's house for tacos and pie. Before the race, Coach Shirley told the team to "run for the tacos," which is exactly what we did. I have enjoyed seeing the strong relationships our team has formed this season, and many of us agreed that celebrating the second to last race of the season with tacos made the race worth it.