Cony Meet

On Friday, October 16 the Lincoln Academy Cross Country team (LAXC) participated in its third regular season meet of 2020 hosted by Cony High School at Cony with Gardiner High School. The Cony course is familiar to LAXC veteran runners as it is the site of the KVAC Championship meet. The course is one of the slower courses in the state and includes a gradual 1/4 mile hill mid race. Friday's conditions were cool and damp with heavy rains prior to the race and light rain throughout the remainder of the afternoon.

The race featured a unique format compared to earlier races with a wave start of 15 boys (five from each team), followed 30 seconds later by the next 15 boys and then a third wave of boys 30 seconds thereafter. The first wave of girls started six minutes after the first group of boys and the second and final wave of girls started 30 seconds after that. Finish times were adjusted to account for different start times. This format forced some runners to adjust their race strategy since they may not have been in the same wave as other runners who they may have normally paced off of.

Both Lincoln squads had strong showings. The girls team bested Cony by one point to take top honors. Final scores were Lincoln 40, Cony 41, and Gardiner 45. The keys to Lincoln's victory were strong front running by Adeline Hall and Audrey Hufnagel who placed third and fourth respectively followed by a strong Lincoln pack that took 10th through 14th place. Ultimately, the victory was secured by Marina McManus and Callie Stapp who were Lincoln's sixth and seventh runners. Callie and Marina placed ahead of Cony's fourth and fifth runners and added four points to the Cony team total which made the difference on the day. Lincoln's boys (40 pints) placed second behind Cony (21 points) while Gardiner (83 points) came in third. Will Sherrill led the way for Lincoln followed by Liam Card.

CJ Savastano had the breakthrough performance of the day running a personal best time on one of the hardest courses in the state to finish as the fifth Lincoln runner and Gary Tibbetts completed his first race in a Lincoln uniform. Hats off also to Sepp Zammuto and Violet Bailey who were the fastest runners in their respective waves and in both instances caught runners who had started ahead of them.

Among LA runners who have run this course in the past, Cedar Canon secured "biggest loser" honors dropping 2 minutes and 10 seconds from last year's time. Bao Dang (-2:02) and Will Sherrill (-1:30) also posted significant improvements. The best part of the day was seeing the way that LA team members tackled this course and worked together to post solid performances. Of particular note were the ways in which Adeline and Audrey, Violet and Rebecca Tomasello, Camden Lebel and Mya Bessey, Scott Petersen and Gary, and Conor Glasier, CJ, and Cedar all pushed each other to stronger results. Well done!

Complete results are posted here. More detailed results for Lincoln runners are included below. The Facebook livestream of the race can be found here.

LA Girls Results

Team Scores: Lincoln 40, Cony 41, Gardiner 45

Name (place) 2019* 2020 1 Mile Split Avg Pace 20-19 +/-

Adeline Hall (3) 23:31 7:03 7:35

Audrey Hufnagel (4) 23:35 7:03 7:36

Violet Bailey (10) 26:09 7:30 8:26

Rebecca Tomasello (11) 26:26 7:30 8:31

Clara Goltz (12) 26:17 26:29 7:46 8:32 +0:12

Marina McManus (13) 26:32 26:47 7:49 8:38 +0:15

Callie Stapp (14) 25:16 27:01 7:43 8:43 +1:45

Camden Lebel (16) 27:10 7:45 8:46

Mya Bessey (17) 27:14 8:26 8:47

Mara Abbott (21) 29:39 30:02 9:10 9:41 +0:23

Mimi Kennedy (23) 30:22 9:03 9:47

*2019 times are from the October 19, 2019 KVAC Championship meet at Cony for returning team members.