Sectionals 11/2/07 by Matt Blizinski and Brian Hickey
The Section 2 Championships were held on Friday November 2 at Saratoga State Park. The Class AA Sectional Boys race included Shenendehowa (the #1 ranked team in NY State), Shaker, Colonie, Guilderland, Niskayuna, and Saratoga. The weather and the course conditions were ideal for Cross Country. Shenendehowa was looking to defend their Section 2 title. The regular season champions of Suburban Council, Shaker, were hoping to stop Shen. In addition to the winning team, the top five individual runners (not on the winning team) in each class also qualify for the State Championships. These individuals, such as Demetri Goutos (Saratoga), Roland Graves (Guilderland), and Louis Serafini (Niskayuna) were expected to be among the top individual finishers along with runners from both Shen and Shaker.
The race ended up being close as expected. The front group of runners including Goutos (Saratoga), Craig Weiss (Shaker), Chris Manico (Shaker), R.J. Sniffen (Shaker), and Jamie Glover (Shen), went out in a 4:50 mile and a little under 10:00 in at the 2 mile mark. It was a good race down to the end. Demetri Goutos (Saratoga), the Suburban Council Champion a week earlier, won the race with a time of 15:14. He was followed by 3 three Shaker runners, R.J. Sniffen (15:25), Craig Weiss (15:27), and Chris Manico (15:28). In 5th, was Jamie Glover of Shen who was right ahead of his teammate Mike Danaher. The 7th place finisher was Roland Graves. Shaker’s 4th runner Jeff Corelli finished 16th with a time of 16:07 and Devon Sedgwick (20th) finished next for Shaker with a time of 16:15. Shaker had 5 runners under 16:15 but it was still not enough to dethrone Shen who finished 5 points better than runner-up Shaker. The average time of the first 5 Shaker runners was just under 15:45 and the first 5 Shen runners’ average time was 15:43.
Queensbury, finished first in the “A” race led by Matt Flint, who won that race with a time of 15:22.5. The average time of the first 5 Queensbury runners was 15:51.8. In the “merged” comparison that included all classes, the order at the top was Shen, Shaker, Queensbury and Burnt Hills. Shaker’s top 7 runners all finished under 16:45. Their 6th runner Eric Young (10th grade), finished 33rd with a time of 16:42 and Mike Libruk (8th grade), Shaker’s 7th runner, finished 38th with a time of 16:45. Shaker’s runners did a terrific job, including Kyle Foster (9th grade) in 17:14, Chris VanZetta (17:23.6) and Ryan Egan in 17:31. Although Shaker finished 2nd in the Class AA race, it was an impressive team performance with a long list of personal records over the course. To give some perspective, last year’s top Shaker runner, Matt Bogdan (now attending Yale University) ran a time of 15:33 last year at Sectionals and this year Shaker had 3 runners beat this time in similar weather conditions. Next Saturday, November 10th Craig Weiss, Chris Manico, and R.J. Sniffen will be running in states. The following weekend Shaker faces their next test, Federations at Bowdoin Park, November 17th and the following weekend at the same course Nike Team Nationals Qualifiers will be held November 24th.
The Shaker Girls team finished in 6th place in the Section 2 “AA” race later the same day. The team was led by Morgan Wojtusik (7th grade) with 21st place finish in a time of 18:54.5 Other Shaker finishers were Melissa Sheridan (25th), Maureen Hill (28th), Alina Heim (36th), Zosia Dunn (40th), Kate Martel (42nd), Natana Gordon (48th), Kelsey Ogden (51st), Molly Nephew (56th) and Blair Burke (62nd). The fast pace of the top runners from Saratoga and Shen may have helped the lengthy list of personal records that were set on the Shaker Girls team.