Miller Place girls 5th in state cross country
Tiana Guevara races for Miller Place during the Class B heat of the NYSPHSAA 2013 Cross Country State Championships. (Nov. 9, 2013) Credit: Shannon DeCelle
It's not something often heard around LI, but for one day, runners were thankful for Sunken Meadow State Park. Why? Because it primed them for Saturday's course.
"There's not too many hills,'' Miller Place's Laura Nolan said of the course at Queensbury High School, where the New York State championships were held. "Compared to Sunken Meadow, it's nothing. Because Sunken Meadow is so difficult, it makes the course seem a lot easier.''
Miller Place finished fifth in Class B. Tiana Guevara placed fourth in 18 minutes, 4.8 seconds, and Talia Guevara, despite an early fall, ran 18:36.6 -- good for 18th.
"I made it about 150 meters and then I fell,'' Talia said. "It wasn't a big thing. It was just uneven and I fell in one of the holes. It wasn't like I fell down the Grand Canyon. By the time I picked myself up, I was in the middle part of the pack. It took me a good 2,000 meters for me to get back in the front.''
Nolan finished 17th in 18:35.8.
In Class A, Eastport-South Manor freshman Taylor McClay was 24th in 18:30.9. Syosset eighth-grader Reilly Siebert was 31st in 18:44.3.
Northport finished sixth in the Class A team competition. Senior Brigid Brennan finished 38th in 18:49.6. Sophomores Jackie Thorne and Amelia Kuehn were clocked in 19:01.3 and 19:32.3, respectively, and Cara Jozefowski finished in 19:49.3.
Friends Academy's Isabella Pascucci was sixth in the Class C race, running 18:49.7. Her teammate, Harmony Grodsky, was 18th in 19:17.9. Friends was seventh in the team competition. Katrina Garry was the third Friends runner to finish, clocking 20:26.7
Oyster Bay senior Nicole Giannetti finished 14th overall in 19:08.8. Mattituck was 10th in team scoring in Class C. Melanie Pfennig, a freshman, finished 48th in 20:01.6.
