Livingston HS Girls Cross Country Finishes 10-0 In SEC Dual Meets

LIVINGSTON, NJ — The following news release comes courtesy of Livingston High School Cross Country. Find out how to post announcements or events to your local Patch site.

As the season progresses, the girls' team wrapped up dual meet action at Branch Brook Park (BBP) in Newark against multiple opponents in cross country (XC) action. Facing American Division foes Mount Kimberley Academy (MKA), Nutley and 3 cross division opponents, the crew was looking to finish the dual meet season undefeated. The goals were to win and also to try and close the top 5 gap and run a faster 5 girls average. Only about 40 girls lined up, and the girls would have to remain focused and push hard to achieve their goals in the smaller field. This week again LHS put 12 girls on the line, all knowing that next week only 7 would toe the line. With the top 4 spots pretty well solidified, the battle to be one of the 5 through 7 finishers was also on the line.

Once gain the weather was ideal for a XC competition. Up front, the progression of other teams in the race could be seen with improved times and competition level across the board. Sophia Paparsenos was challenged along the way by Nutley and MKA's top runners, but for the 3rd time this year crossed the line first in 20:07. Next in was Sophie Schumacher with a large (:30) personal best (PB) taking 5th in 20:45. Taking the #3 & #4 spots were Sarah Nidhan (22:39; 6th) and Lila Maru (23:31; 7th). MKA and Nutley both pushed 2 more girls across and then taking over a minute off her previous best, Kiera D'Souza crossed in 13th at 23:18. Not far behind Anne Ferrans (23:45;15th) also ran a PB and rounding out the top 7 on this day was Avery Lerman, with her PB by just shy of a minute at 23:56 in the #17 spot. Continuing the trend, Emma Xing (24:40;23rd), Lexis Chen (24:43;24th) and Jordyn Fersko (24:52;25th) all ran seasons best times. Frosh Ava Gelfenshteyn in her first varsity race showed massive improvement of almost 4 minutes since the season opener running a PB of 25:44 for 30th. Carolina Romero Vasquez had to momentarily pull off the course, but managed to rejoin the race and finish in 36th. The girls bested MKA and Nutley by identical 38-21 scores to finish 10-0 in the American Division and won the 3 cross division matches to go 21-0 vs Liberty and Colonial opponents. They achieved their team goals on the day with their best top 5 average to date of 21:50 and reduced their top 5 split to 3:11, the tightest this season for them. The 21:50 average also is the #7 best team average for LHS ever on this course. The rest of the team would run the JV 5k at this meet with Kaya Bhansali in her first HS 5k race clocking 25:19 for 6th place. Next for LHS was Yolanda Cheung (26:15: 7th). Also competing for the lancers was Kacey Law (27:03; 10th), Summer Levy (27:41; 11th), Allison Zhou (28:37; 15th), Michaela Liu (29:43; 20th)Kayla Greenfeld (30:29; 22nd), Ioanna Gliati (30:41; 24th), Sofia Iskold (32:41; 31st), Samridhi Sharma (33:44; 32nd) and Richelle Lederman (37:33; 39th).

It was the most complete race that the varsity had put together this season, and the girls gained experience and more confidence as they begin the championship portion of the campaign. Though 10-0 in the dual meet action, they will go into the Conference Championship meet ranked 2nd on Tuesday 10-15. After that they will compete on Saturday (10/19) at the Essex County Track Coaches Invitational, then the Essex County Championship (10/25) and on to the first leg of the State Tournament, Group 4 North 1 Championship on 11/2.

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