Cross Country

Hornets Continue Post Season Racing

Even though the S.P.C. meet is several weeks in the past, a handful of Greenhill cross country runners extended their 2009 season and have recently been competing in regional meets.

Starting with the boys, junior Eriq Robinson and freshman Ryan Duffy journeyed to The Woodlands to race in the Nike South Regional Championships on November 21. After two days of rain, both runners arrived at the race site to find poor conditions. Fortunately for Robinson and Duffy, their race was the first one on the course even though the footing was still sloppy in most spots. Both runners held their own in the competitive field and on a day when final times meant little, Robinson led the way with an impressive 13^th place finish (17:32) in the open race. To put his race in some perspective, Robinson finished 6^th at the S.P.C. race on November 6^th. Fast forward 15 days later and in the Nike meet, Robinson faced off against hundreds of runners, some of whom were from S.P.C. schools. In the Nike meet, he time beat the second, third, and fourth place finishers from the S.P.C. meet and was a mere fourteen seconds behind the S.P.C. individual champion’s time over the same 5K course! All in all that made for a strong finish to a much improved 2009 cross country season. As for Duffy (18:57), he also placed well compared to other S.P.C. runners and used the Nike race to gain some valuable experience. Both runners commented about how physical the race was. Thrown elbows, pushing, and jostling during the race made this a true championship competition.

Junior Chelsey Sveinsson opted not to race in The Woodlands and traveled to the Foot Locker South Regional meet instead on November 28. Last year Sveinsson competed in both the Nike and Foot Locker meets, racing at an extremely high level for four consecutive weekends. This year she solely has her sights set on the Foot Locker meet and the regional meet in Charlotte, North Carolina was a qualifying race. All Sveinsson needed to do was finish in the top ten among individuals. For anyone who knows Sveinsson, the last thing she was about to do was settle for simply qualifying. Instead, she finished first and ran a personal best at the same time! Taking advantage of a crowded and competitive racing field, Sveinsson sat with the race leaders for 2.5 miles before pulling away for a convincing victory in 16:53 over the 5K distance. Next Sveinsson travels to San Diego for the Foot Locker Nationals on December 12 where she will look to improve on last year’s fourth place finish.