Grout Run by Matt Blizinski and Brian Hickey
2007 Grout Invitational

The Shaker Varsity boys cross country team ran at the Grout Cross Country Invitational on Saturday October 6th. The team went 1, 2, 5, 10 and 26 in a field of about 100 runners. Shaker ended up with 44 team points and came in second just behind Washingtonville with 41 points. The Shaker boys were led by Craig Weiss, who won the race with a time of 13:28 on the 2.7 mile road course. He was followed by Chris Manico’s second place finish with an impressive kick and Devon Sedgwick, who improved by almost a minute from last year and finished 5th. Jeff Corelli was 10th and first year Cross Country runner Chris Van Zetta finished in 26th place . Although there were all these great individual performances, Shaker really felt the loss of their number one runner R.J. Sniffen who was taking SAT tests and unable to compete because of the scheduling conflict.

The J.V. boys also ran on Saturday at the Grout Cross Country Invitational, where they finished 4th out of 10 teams. The J.V. team had another strong performance with the first 5 runners under 30th place. The team was lead by Eric Young’s 4th (overall) and Will Schanz, who were followed by Brian McConkey, Chris Herman and Matt Conti. The team continues to improve as individual runners work hard to lower times.

The Boys Frosh team once again showed their impressive depth as they finished in a tie score with Shenendehowa in the battle for the first place trophy with 59 points each. Unfortunately, Shen was awarded first based on the tiebreaker. Shaker was led by Mike Libruk’s strong first place finish as he waited off the pace in second place for most of the race before making his move on the last uphill to move to the front and hold off the fast charging Shen and Ballston Spa runners. Brian O’Connor (5th) and Kyle Foster (11th) also scored important points for the team. Shaker also won the “unofficial” team title in the second Frosh race. Led by Ryan Recchia, Shaker had 5 of the first 10 runners to cross the finish line in the “unlimited frosh boys race”.

The Girls Varsity team finished 3rd of 9 teams at Grout. They were led by Zosia Dunn (7th overall), Maureen Hill (10th), Melissa Sheridan (15th), Natana Gordon (19th) and Kate Martel (22nd). The Girls J.V. also finished 3rd out of 9 teams in their race. The top Shaker runner was Molly Nephew (2nd overall). She was followed in the scoring by Leah Nazarian (10th), Christine Hall (19th), Julia McCane (23rd) and Meg Cheney (25th). The highlight for the Shaker Girls team may have been the Championship trophy received by the Frosh girls for their big win on Saturday. Led by their top runner, Morgan Wojtusik, who finished 4th overall, the team placed their top 5 runners in the first 9 across the finish line. Blair Burke (6th), Kayleigh Lavender (7th), Nicole Wiegman (8th) and Marissa McIntyre (9th) all ran a great race to bring home the Championship.