The States meet at Pawling on November 13 2010 was a rarity for NY state cross country championships with great temperatures and a course that was not boggy or frozen or rain swept or blisteringly hot. 2010 was the last XC States that was run under the 5-class AA-A-B-C-D format. There were numerous outstanding individual performances and the winners included one runner who would go on to add three more national titles to her stash of wins plus another who would go on to win a world championship.
Only two of the individual battles were that close, both on the boys' side, as Cicero-North Syracuse's Chris Buchanan held off Saratoga's Sam Place by less than a second for the final AA title, and Holland Patent's Dylan Racha edged his twin Cody by .3 in the C race. Other guys' champs included McQuaid's Robert Hurlbut in A, Springville's Chad Maloy in B, and Beaver River's Matthew Cheney in D. For the girls the winners were Fayettville-Manlius's Christie Rutledge in AA, Cornwall's Aisling Cuffe in A while on her way to the Foot Locker and indoor and outdoor 3000m national crowns, Christine Driscoll of Geneva in B, and we'll skip C for the moment and go to D, where 7th grader Sage Hurta won the first of her three XC States titles.
On the team side, both of the Class C races were decided by 3 points, and for the boys it was Fonda-Fultonville displacing the Racha twins' reigning champ Holland Patent team. Shaker won boys AA comfortably, McQuaid beat Vestal by 8 in A, East Aurora was the champion in B, and Geneseo took D. On the girls' side, FM again won the AA title with a 15 point score though not with its runners finishing 1-5 overall as in 2009, North Shore won the first of its consecutive States titles in A and with a B title to follow in 2011, East Aurora got the Blue Devils a sweep of the B titles, and in D it was Maple Grove winning the first of three consecutive D crowns.
So that takes us to Girls Class C, many of whose participants had been the ones shivering in the freezing rain for ten minutes in the last race at Plattsburgh waiting for the starter's gun to fire in 2009. At Pawling in the morning they had perfect conditions for a race that had many intriguing aspects. Bronxville had won in C the previous two years, but in 2010 the Broncos were facing an old nemesis Greenwich team that had won Class C in 2006 and 2007 before going down to D for titles in 2008 and 2009 and then moving back to C for 2010. Two schools with a combined 12 XC States titles between them headed for a showdown.
Freshman Mary Cain in her first XC season and sophomore Meredith Rizzo (Matt and Alex's big sister) gave the Broncos the edge at the top, but Greenwich was projected as the slight favorite by both Tully Runners and MileSplit based having a more veteran team led by senior Betsy Edinger and sophomores Victoria Houser and Madeline Montague along with Sarah Lapham and 7th grader Tori Spezio. and just being more consistent. Cain and Rizzo finished 1-2, and in the end there were two keys to the Broncos 48-51 win after trailing the Witches early on. One was home field advantage, since the Broncos had won their Sectional title at Pawling and knew better how to survive the course's Porcupine Hill. The other key was a senior Bronco from France recently promoted back from the JV squad who led the team's back-of-the-pack comeback. When Coach Jim Mitchell told Serena Saari that the win depended on her with a mile to go, she responded with a surge that carried her up about ten places to finish 32nd overall and 16th in the team score as the fourth Bronco in between Courtney Campbell and Emelie Hoffer. The two teams would fight it out again in 2011 at Vernon-Verona-Sherrill, and again the Broncos would come away with a 3-point win in Cain's second and last States XC championship.
Apologies about the partisan cheering for local athletes and family members, but I was just covering Section 1 back in 2010 and had no connection with MileSplit at that time.
Girls Class C Results
