Boys on the Rise, Girls in a Rebuilding Phase

by Noah Corman ’19

At the Montgomery County Championships, the boys finished 10th out of 25 teams, improving five places from last year. Junior Ethan Tagliere finished 28th with a personal best of 16:42 for the 5K. The girls finished 12th out of 24 teams, finishing five places worse than last year. Despite an underwhelming team performance, freshman Emily Gravell finished 16th with an impressive personal best of 19:29.

The County Championships course at Gaithersburg is mostly flat terrain with few hills which gives runners excellent opportunities to run personal best times. This helped the varsity runners build confidence for regionals and states.

At the 4A North Regional race, the boys and girls needed 6th place team finishes or better to qualify for states. The boys finished 4th, a one-spot improvement from regionals last season, and the girls finished 5th, a two-spot decline from last year’s regionals. Tagliere and Gravell led the team again, finishing 13th and 6th respectively.

At a temperature near freezing at the 4A State Championship, the boys improved six spots from last year’s state championship and finished 12th out of 23 teams. Tagliere finished 51st in a particularly tough field. The girls, with an 11th place finish out of 19 teams, dropped two spots from last year. Gravell was a bright spot for the team during their down year, however, and they finished with a team-high 34th place.

The boys and girls continue their streaks of qualifying for states which now extend to over a decade. Neither the boys nor girls varsity will lose many seniors, so the team will likely have an even stronger season next fall.