Tigers senior earns spot to this Saturday’s national meet by placing eighth overall in the Championship race. Brookline finishes fourth overall in the boys’ race.
WAPPINGER FALLS, N.Y. – Talk about peaking at just the right time.
Just a week after taking runner-up honors in the Division 1 race at the Meet of Champion, Katie Sobieraj was at her best once again this past weekend at the Nike Cross Regionals – Northeast in Wappinger Falls, N.Y. The Oliver Ames senior was eighth overall in the featured Championship race with a time of 18 minutes, 56.9 seconds on the challenging 5K at Bowdoin Park. More importantly, her finish qualified her for a spot at the Nike Cross Nationals (NXN) on Saturday in Portland, Oregon.
Team-wise, Oliver Ames was an impressive fifth overall with 174 points. Finishing sixth was fellow MA squad Arlington with 232 points. Behind Sobieraj, junior Braelyn Graham (30th, 20:11.3), senior Anne Reilly (39th, 20:18.7), junior Hannah Dupill (46th, 20:23.1) and sophomore Iole Apostoli (53rd, 20:34.1) completed the scoring. For Arlington, junior Evie Lauzon (32nd, 20:14.5), senior Elise Kempf (40th, 20:19.6), junior Sophia Francis (41st, 20:20.5), senior Ellery Klatka (58th, 20:42.6) and senior Safiya Ait Ali (61st, 20:50.1) were the top five.
In the boys’ Championship race, four teams in the field ranked among the top 20 in the country, including perennial power and No. 3 Christian Brothers Academy and fellow NJ rival Westfield, which holds the tenth spot nationally. Brookline coach Mike Glennon was well aware his talented squad was in for a battle. He also felt a top-two finish and automatic qualifier for NXN this weekend was possible with his No. 16 ranked Warriors (No. 3 regionally) performing at their best.
Brookline put forth a solid effort at Saturday’s meet, but it needed a lot more as CBA and Westfield were simply dominant, scoring a low 59 and 69 points, respectively to take the 1-2 spots. Ridgefield, the recent New England champions and the No. 17 squad nationally, finished third with 123 points. Brookline placed fourth with 167.
Just how dominant were the two New Jersey squads? CBA and Westfield had four runners across the line before the Warriors’ first, senior Pablo Tejedor Meyers (25th, 16:33.8). Rounding out the scorers for Brookline, which had a gap of just 25.9 seconds between its’ one and five, were junior Altamo Aschkenasy (46th, 16:53.9), senior Kailas Ciatto (48th, 16:54.0), senior Ben Kasen (50th, 16:55.0), and junior Lysander Duffield (57th, 16:59.7).
Newton South’s Ilan Sherman-Kadish was the first harrier from the Bay State to cross the finish line, placing 11th overall with a time of 16:22.7. The Lions’ senior was just two spots away from qualifying individually for NXN. As a team, Newton South was 11th among the 34 schools with 343 points.
