Port Chester's x-country team beats clock in Section 1 championships at Bowdoin Park
November 20, 2024 at 11:40 p.m.
They beat the clock in the final Section 1 cross country race of their fall season. But their improved times over the 3.1-mile Bowdoin Park course showed how far they still have to go because while the distance may remain the same, the finishing times vary depending on where the runners compete.
The Rams and Lady Rams x-country harriers all improved their times in their final Section 1 race of the fall season at Bowdoin Park in Wappingers Falls (11/9), a notoriously difficult course because of the ups and downs of all the rugged hills involved.
And that says a lot about the local team's improvement in the championship race.
'Horses for courses'
Because they do their distance training at nearby Crawford Park with its gentle hills and raced over the slightly harder course in White Plains. They have also seen racers get lost in title runs through the sylvan glades of unfamiliar Woodlands in Hartsdale, a veritable forest primeval. And they have learned 3.1 miles seems a lot longer at Croton Point, another rugged championship racing site.
But Bowdoin Park is the roughest, toughest local championship course of them all.
When runners hit their fastest times of the year there, they know they ran their best in what they call a "horses for courses" race because improved times come a lot faster over easier courses like Crawford and White Plains but are a lot harder to come by at Woodlands and Croton and hardest of all at Bowdoin.
P.C. head coach pleased
Port Chester head cross country coach Cindy Reyes Martinez was pleased with her team's vastly improved performance in the sectionals while competing against some of the area's largest and best running schools.
Lady Ram cross country runners after cruising over the 3.1-mile course in the Section 1 championships Nov. 9 at Bowdoin Park. They are, from left, Camila Ramos, Abigail Pesantez, Alexa Aguiriano, Katheryn Espinoza and Mayerlin Torres.Cindy Martinez
It was Port Chester's last x-country race of the fall season, and all the hard work in distance training paid off.
The Rams’ All-League cross country runner Santiago Marquez finished in a time of 18:16, an improvement of almost one minute over his last year's time of 19:11 in the same race over the same course. "He ran a great race and showed great improvement," Martinez said after the race in which Marquez, a junior, finished 40th out of 161 of the area's best runners.
The rest of the Rams team also showed marked improvement with Christopher Zamora finishing in 21:29 (135th place), Anthony Delgado in 21:56 (142nd place), and Ethan Cabrera, new to the sport, ran 22:46 (151st place). Which means the slowest Ram finisher still averaged slightly more than seven minutes per mile over a difficult course, a tribute to how well-conditioned they are.
The leading ladies
The Lady Rams also ran what Martinez called "an amazing race" and "were all happy with their times because there was so much improvement especially because we've been running in muddy, slippery conditions the last few years," Martinez said.
Alexis Aguiriano was the first Lady Rams finisher in 25:30 (82nd place). Abigail Pesantez came next (27:32, 110th place), followed by Camila Ramos (28:10, 118th), Katheryn Espinoza (28:16, 120th) and Mayerlin Torres (28:59, 124th). So the Lady Rams’ last finisher still ran the distance in under 10 minutes per mile, and if you think that's easy, just try it sometime.
While Martinez was pleased with the team's overall improvement time-wise, as an ex-Lady Ram runner (she still holds the school's female record for the mile at 5 minutes flat), she knows Port Chester still has a long way to go to be truly competitive against the area's best Class A runners.
Room for improvement
Horace Greeley sophomore Ryan Sykes and North Rockland's Ryan Touhy and Claudel Chery, both juniors, finished first, second and third in the respective times of 16:00.1, 16:15.6 and 16:25, the fastest times of the 443 male finishers in four classes. Scarsdale's Adriana Pettinelli, a freshman, won the girls’ Class A race in 18:50.3 followed by Marist-bound Abby Kowalczyk (18:59.8) and North Rockland's Gaby Castro (19:30.4). They were the top three female runners out of the 134 finishers competing for the 18 teams in the race.
So, Port Chester still has a long way to go if they want to compete against the area's best. But the Rams and Lady Rams are making steady progress under Martinez, a world language teacher at the Port Chester Middle School. She knows getting up there in the x-country top tier is going to take time. But the times they are a changin' and Port Chester's times are improving in their race to beat the clock and themselves. As a work in progress, they are definitely progressing which is a big step in the right direction.
Comments:
You must login to comment.