By Madison Dymond ’16

The girls’ cross country team placed 12 out of 32 teams at an October 10 invitational meet in New York. Seniors Amanda Hayes-Puttfarcken and Maddie Peloff came in first and second place, both receiving medals. Freshman Alexa Donaldson came in sixth place and received a medal as well.

Coming into this season, the team knew that they had the potential to be one of the strongest groups of runners in the county. So far, so good. The team also had an impressive performance at the DCXC Invite three weeks ago, with several girls reaching personal records and a few receiving medals. Hayes-Puttfarcken came in eighth place with a time of 19:32.

Earlier in the season, the team beat Northwest on September 29 during their second divisional meet. The girls also performed well during their first divisional meet which took place on September 15, beating Northwest and Poolesville but losing to Wootton. The meet took place at Sherwood and was the first home meet of the season. The results of the second meet will go towards the team’s overall scores and ranking. At the September 29 meet, Sherwood won with a time of 21:08, run by Hayes-Puttfarcken, followed by Northwest runner Sofia Zarate in second, with a time of 21:57. Peloff came in third with a time of 22:04.

“I am very optimistic about the season,” said Hayes-Puttfarcken, one of the team’s three captains. “The team’s looking pretty good, and I believe we have a chance at winning Regionals.”

Senior Jacqueline Noland agrees with that assessment. “It’s going pretty well. The girls are doing well and we’re all coming together, and our training over the summer is starting to really pay off,” she said.

The top runners are generally the same as last year, seeing as the team did not lose any seniors to graduation. Hayes-Puttfarcken and Peloff remain the team’s two strongest runners, but there is definitely some new freshmen talent as well.

“The freshmen are looking pretty good this year overall. Alexa Donaldson is improving greatly,” said Hayes-Puttfarcken. Donaldson’s performance at the October 10 meet backs this up. Unfortunately, two of the new top freshmen runners, Megan Kendall and Charlotte Haughton, are injured. These runners ran in the most recent race, but haven’t been able to train recently due to their injuries. Because of this, they struggled to reach their full potential after missing out on practice.

The top seven girls run each meet. There is no official list of top runners, as Coach Dan Reeks changes his rotation every meet based on each runner’s performance. There are also no official rankings at the moment. The second half of the season always sees great improvement as the runners increase their training base.

The entire season leads up to the County’s meet, which will be held on Saturday October 24, and Regionals that will take place two weeks after that. The team generally is keeping the same training techniques it has always had, which involves emphasis on even pace-running, but there is one aspect the runners are doing differently this year. “Instead of grouping by gender, we’re grouping solely by times run in races,” said Hayes-Puttfarcken. Some of this year’s girls are as fast as some of the boys, so they are now practicing together. This will allow for the runners to be able to practice in a way that best fits their talents as opposed to being grouped by gender.

The team has overcome many obstacles so far this year including various injuries, and the girls have still managed to have an extremely impressive start to the season. If this is any indicator of how well their season will go, things are looking pretty positive.