With a team dominated by new faces, long time Girls Cross Country coach Mr. Jim Davidson has gotten to work with many new runners coming in at all different levels of experience. He has been able to craft this group of new runners into a very solid team that will be going into New Englands with high hopes after getting some big wins this season.
The girls started the season very well with back to back wins at home against Lawrenceville and Taft. In the girls’ historic race against Lawrenceville, which was the first time the teams from each school had faced each other in a dual meet, they were able to come away with a 25-31 win. Their race against Taft, however, was a much more even matchup as the girls were able to narrowly beat them 28-29. After some impressive home meets early in the season, the girls raced Phillips Academy Andover, Deerfield, and Loomis Chaffee. The girls lost a tough race to Andover but were able to rally the following week when they raced against Deerfield and Loomis. Although they lost a challenging race to a strong Deerfield team, they were able to pull away and beat Loomis by a score of 19-40. The next week the girls returned home and were able to revive their winning streak against Hotchkiss who they beat 25-30. Although Hotchkiss had a commanding lead on the first half of the course, the girls showed some resiliency and were able to rally on the second half of the course and pick up the victory. The team then headed up to Northfield Mt. Hermon for its final dual race of the season. It entered with a slight disadvantage due to scheduling conflicts for some of their runners, but it still managed to keep it close narrowly losing 30-26.
As they head into Founders, the girls will look to fend off Loomis, who was the only team that finished ahead of them at the Founders League Championships last year. The team has already beaten Loomis once this season and will look to replicate that performance at founders. Defending their home turf will prove to be the girls’ most difficult task though as Choate will host the New England Championships this year. After and eighth place finish last year, the team will look to improve upon that this year. The girls will certainly go in with an edge since the race will be on their course, but they will look for strong performances from Captain Kay Ingulli ’18, Lilly Bar ’19, Sarah McAndrew ’20.
If you are around for Deerfield day, I would highly recommend heading up to the cross country course and watching Choate compete against 12 other schools, because you won’t get to see a race of this magnitude at Choate for some time.