2008 Albany County Championships2008 Albany County Varsity Champions

10/17/08: Shaker Captures 5 of 6 Team Titles at Albany County Championships

The Shaker Boys and Girls teams brought home five different team championship trophies for their outstanding performances at the Albany County Championships that were held at the Colonie Town Park on Friday, October 17th.
In the first race of the day, Brian O’Connor took first place in the Boys Frosh race with a winning time that was the third fastest ever run by a Shaker freshman at the frosh course at Colonie Town Park. He was joined in the top 10 medal winners by Caleb Mellon, Ryan Recchia, Adam Schwenzfeier and Brian Hickey. These runners have all run times in 2008 that will be included in the list of top individual all-time performances on the Frosh course at Colonie Town Park.
The Girls Frosh race was closer as Shaker defeated Runner-up Colonie by a single point and third place finisher Guilderland by three points. The team was led by Laura Libruk in second and Kristen Moras in fifth place as Shaker’s sixth finisher actually finished ahead of Colonie’s #5 runner to assure the victory.
The Shaker Boys JV team completely dominated their race taking 9 of the top 10 spots. They were led across the finish by Matt Blizinski, who was joined as an individual medal winner by Dave Marthy, Chris VanZetta, Dylan Hedderman, Brian McConkey, Chris Herman, Jeff Heim, Brian Enright and Dan McGrail.
The JV Girls team also captured the Championship trophy in another close battle among the girls as they edged Guilderland by one point and only 14 points separated the top four teams. 8th grader Kayleigh Lavender was moved up to run with the JV as Coach Gansle had to juggle her teams to adjust for some sickness on the Varsity team. Kayleigh earned an individual medal for 5th place finish and was joined by Marissa McIntyre and Tirzah Ziegler in the top 10.
The Varsity Boys made it five Shaker Championship trophies in a row as they won their race with a 1-2-3 finish by Craig Weiss, Ryan Egan and Mike Libruk. All three completed the course in times that will move them into the top 10 all-time Shaker performances at the Colonie Town Park, especially Craig’s time which was the second fastest ever by a Shaker runner at CTP. Other individual (top 15) medal winners in the Varsity race for Shaker were Casey Gilboy, Will Schanz and Kyle Foster.
The Varsity Girls, without their top two runners, finished third in the ten team field. They were led by Zosia Dunn (4th), Molley Nephew (13th) and Melissa Sheridan (15th). Overall, it was a very good day for the Shaker Boys and Girls teams with many runners completing the course in their personal best times.