The Inside Track
Sunday October 5, 2008

Sunday October 5, 2008: The Manhattan Invitational highlights this week’s schedule. Boys: The team will leave school on Friday morning in anticipation of the meet on Saturday morning (10/11/08) at Van Cortlandt Park. The two fastest team times ever run by Shaker teams have been run the last two years. Craig Weiss will be attempting to improve on his #4 all-time Shaker performance and the rest of the Varsity will be looking to run new PR’s on the course and earn a spot on the list. Over 12,000 runners participated in last year’s races. A strong group of sophomores will be running the longer distance at VCP for the first time. The Frosh team will be looking to repeat last year’s Championship performance. The Girl’s team, coming off solid Invitational meet performances in recent weeks, are expected to improve on last year’s Varsity finish and also hope to defend the Frosh Championship they won last year.

This week’s league meet for the Boys and Girls teams will be held at the Colonie Town Park with the first Frosh race scheduled to begin around 4:00PM. We will be hosting Bethlehem and Columbia.

With three top Frosh runners moving up to Varsity Boys team in Saturday’s Grout run, Adam Schwenzfeier was the first Shaker Frosh runner to complete the course. He was the fifth different Shaker runner to complete a freshman race ahead of all his teammates this season. Several Varsity runners were absent in order to take the S.A.T. tests on Saturday.

The Girls team has continued to receive some team and individual attention in NY State rankings. The team has continued to be listed among the top 20 Girls teams in NY State Class AA (largest schools). Three individual team members are listed among the top 100 Girls in Class AA on the tullyrunners speed ratings: Emma Risler, Morgan Wojtusik and Zosia Dunn.

Three members of the Boys team are included on the tullyrunners list of top Class AA runners in New York State: Craig Weiss, Eric Young and Ryan Egan are among those runners given speed ratings high enough to qualify.

Alumni Update: R.J. Sniffen (’08) continued his strong Freshman season at UAlbany with a 9th place (out of 84) finish to help his team to a 3rd place finish in the Towson Invitational on October 3rd. Nick Webster (‘07), Marist sophomore, completed the Paul Short run in a personal best time on October 3rd. Please submit info on Shaker grads to bhickey@shakerrunning.com

Girls Team Update (by Katy Sniffen): Shaker girls had outstanding performances at the Rhode Island New Balance Meet despite the horrible weather. Varsity’s Emma Risler, Morgan Wojtusik, Melissa Sheridan, and Zosia Dunn placed in top 25, helping place 3rd overall as a team. Junior Varsity’s Blair Burke, Christine Hall, Marissa McIntyre, and Julia McCane also placed within top 25, earning their team a 2nd place finish. Our Freshman team had an amazing finish with Laura Libruk, Kayleigh Lavender, Kristen Moras, Erin Bryk, Jessica Dzialo, Amanda Sacca, Jackie Heim, and Meg Deguire all placing within the top 25, finishing 2nd overall as a team. Great job girls!