The Inside Track
Sunday August 24, 2008
Sunday August 24, 2008: You may have seen on the Boys XC schedule that the first meet is the Ekiden hosted by Niskayuna and held at the Iroquois Middle School on Saturday, September 6th. The meet website describes the event “as a fun and unique way to start the season”. Each school is allowed an unlimited number of 5 person teams. The meet is a relay style event where freshman and younger run 1000 meter legs and JV and Varsity run 1.5 mile legs. A sash rather than baton will be exchanged at the end of each leg. Schools will bring their own creatively designed sash for each team entered. Did you know that the sash is called a “tasuki”?
Pre-season attention: Senior Craig Weiss has been listed among the top returning Cross Country runners in NYS on tullyrunners website. Three members of the girls team were among the 100 NYS runners listed in a similar article on the same website : Emma Risler, Melissa Sheridan and Morgan Wojtusik.
Section 2 teams are expected to be well represented at the NYS Championship meets late in the season. Shen is expected to dominate the NYS Boys Championships and compete for a national team title in the Nike Cross Nationals (NXN). The Burnt Hills Girls are expected to lead several teams in what could be the deepest talent pool of girls teams in NYS history. Along with BH-BL, other Section 2 teams with a real chance to qualify for NXN are Saratoga, Queensbury and Shen. Also listed in the top 20 on that website’s preseason NYS ranking were Guilderland, Colonie, Greenwich and Shaker(#20). While the Shaker girls team is expected to improve as most of last year’s top runners are returning, it seems like the quality of almost all of the Girl’s teams have moved to a higher level.
Several former Shaker runners have stopped by during the first few days of practice to say hello to Coach Springstead and support the team, including, RJ Sniffen, Matt Bogdan and Ron Chen…each of them hold at least two Shaker individual or relay school track records.
The big turn-out of Jr. High runners for the girl's team is encouraging for the future of Coach Gansle's team.
Manhattan Invitational goes high tech! With over 12,000 high school runners participating, the announcement that new sponsorships will now allow for electronic registration and scoring was long overdue. The Boys and Girls Teams will be travelling to Manhattan on Friday, October 10th. Many Shaker parents are expected to make the trip early the next morning to cheer on the team at Van Cortlandt Park on Saturday!
