| 10/19/2006 |
| Amity
cross country teams earn both Housatonic titles |
| By:
Phil Brodsky |
|
After failing to win the 2005 Southern Connecticut Conference's
Housatonic Division championship because it lost its last race
of the season to Cheshire by one slim point, the Amity girls'
cross country team defeated the Rams 25-30 last week to bring
home the 2006 Housy crown.
"We had expected the race with Cheshire (which was held on
the 3.05 mile Fitzgerald Garden course in Woodbridge) to be very
close, perhaps decided by only one or two points," Amity
coach Chris Dickerson said. "Our girls ran great and most
important of all, ran together. It was a very close race, a battle
right to the end. Annalies Gamble ran the final 400 in 59 seconds
and outraced two Cheshire girls to the finish line."
Cheshire's Irene Kalbian was the first runner across the finish
line, completing the course in 19 minutes, 37 seconds. Paige
Pallotto was Amity's top runner, finishing second out of 77
runners with a time of 20:09. Stephanie Shea was fifth at 20:22.
Gamble's 20:24 was good for sixth place. JoAnna Cambria (20:55)
and Jamie Marrone (21:06) were ninth and 11th respectively.
"Joanna Cambria and Jamie Marrone have done tremendous jobs
as our co-captains," Dickerson said. "They've built real
team unity. It was also very good to see Stephanie Shea looking
overt her shoulder for Annalies as she crossed the finish
line."
Dickerson pointed to Guilford, Mercy and Cheshire as the Lady
Spartans' top competition for the SCC Championship in Thursday's
title chase at Hammonasset State Park in Madison.
Boys Cross Country
Last week's victories over Cheshire (17-40) and Shelton (18-39)
allowed the Amity boys' cross country team, currently ranked No. 7
in the state, to clinch its fourth straight Southern Connecticut
Conference Housatonic Division championship.
It was also the Spartans' 12th Housy crown in the last 14 years.
With those two wins, Amity closed out the dual meet portion of its
season with an overall 10-1 record and 9-1 against SCC opponents,
while going 4-0 in the Housy.
"We expected a much closer meet, but it didn't turn out that
way," Amity coach Bob Orgovan said. "We had run well the
previous Saturday at the Wickham Park Invitational and ran well
ahead of both Shelton and Cheshire.
"We thought they weren't going all out because they were
going to run against us three days later and wanted to save
something for us. After we beat both teams by such a big margin,
we realized that maybe we had underestimated our own abilities and
in reality, we were a stronger team than we had previously
believed."
In addition to winning the 3.05 mile race over his home Fitzgerald
Garden course in 16 minutes, 12 seconds, the Spartans' Wes
Halstead tied the course record that Carl Desir had set in 2003.
Paul Kichar was second at 16:32 and was followed across the finish
line by: Shelton's Keith Sansone (16:47), Dan Rothberg (17:06),
Cheshire's Will Trumbo (17:15), Adam Trofa (17:18), and Joe
Greenspun (17:22).
"Our guys ran really well," Orgovan said. "They've
improved so much in the last two weeks. If we had run this race
against Shelton and Cheshire two weeks ago, I think it would have
been much closer. While our five guys are running great, there is
a 30 second gap between our Nos. 5 and 6 guys.
"We could be in trouble if one of our top five gets hurt. We
just don't have the depth that we had last year. As long as the
top five guys stay healthy, we should be o.k."
The annual SCC Championship race was slated for this Thursday
afternoon at Hammonasset State Park in Madison. Orgovan felt that
Xavier was the team to beat, but only by a narrow margin over his
own Spartans.
The Class LL championship race will be held on Saturday, October
28 at Wickham Park in Manchester.
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