Hall Looks to Continue Success in the Cross Country Season

Hall+Looks+to+Continue+Success+in+the+Cross+Country+Season

Above is the parts of the Hall boys and girls cross country team at their annual Vermont running camp over the summer.

Hall Looks to Continue Success in the Cross Country Season

On October 17th at Wickham park, Jenna Zydanwicz, Trey Cormier, and both teams took first place at the CCC Cross Country Championships. This was by no means their first landslide win. Earlier in the season at the Haddad Windham Cross Country Invitational the varsity boys won by an astounding margin of eighty six points. Cormier again ran away with the individual honors, winning by sixteen seconds. Also at the Haddad Cross Country Invitational the girls team won with by a healthy twenty four points and Zydanwicz won by a stunning twenty six seconds.

 

On top of the many impressive performances by the Hall cross country team at the CCC Championships, the boys put three in the top ten and five in the top fifteen. Those strong finishes allowed Hall boys to finish five runners before any other teams finished three. The girls also ran away with the team title and Jenna Zydanwicz took the individual win. Head coach Scott Sampietro described Zydanowicz’s performance of 18:28 at the challenging wickham park course as the biggest surprise of the season thus far. “We all thought that sub 19:00 was realistic but not thirty two seconds sub 19:00”.

 

Head boys coach Jeff Billing, described the biggest surprise of the season thus far as the performance of junior Josh Fernandez. “The performance of Josh Fernandez has been a pretty big surprise, he’s improved by almost two minutes from last year. He was already pretty good last year but he’s leapfrogged into the varsity mix” Josh attributes most of his success this season to the mileage he put in over the summer. “Over the summer I put in so much work, around three hundred and sixty miles and I was able to improve my fitness so much more”

 

Heading into the postseason both teams look to qualify for the New England Championships in Belfast Maine, which will take place on November Eleventh. Coach Billing describes his goals for the remainder of the season as improving each week and winning a championship in the next couple races. “Goals for the rest of the season are for the guys to keep running faster each week and to compete against the best teams in the state and in our region. I’d also like to win one of the next three races” Those three races he’s referring to are the CIAC Class LL championship, CIAC State Open Championships and the New England Cross Country Championships. Both the boys and girls teams compete in the CIAC State Open Championship this Friday November Third at wickham park in Manchester Connecticut.