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Julia Coyle. Photo by Marc Allard
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Senior Vince Bastura fights his way to the line and a seventh-place finish. Photo by Marc Allard.
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Christian Menounos, left, battles competitors heading into the final stretch. Photo by Marc Allard.
The Woodstock Academy boys’ cross country team finished fourth at ECC cross-country championship.
Stonington senior Ryan Gruczka took off from the starting gun at the ECC and Woodstock sophomore Christian Menounos was one of those trying to catch up to him.
“Christian has some good friends on other teams and they were all talking about how fast the Stonington kid went out. They all thought they could reel him in and he just never came back,” said coach Peter Lusa.
Gruczka finished in 16 minutes, 39 seconds.
That was 12 seconds better than fellow senior Brendan Fant of East Lyme. Vikings junior Sean McCauley in third and Menounos in fourth finished within five seconds of Fant with Menounos getting across the line in 16:56.
Overall, Menounos was happy with his fourth-place finish.
“My goal was to get into the top five and keeping working hard. Next year, I can go for the top because two of the three kids ahead of me were seniors,” Menounos said. “I was feeling good aerobically. My legs were a little iffy but overall, I was feeling pretty good.”
But Menounos did identify quickly where he needed to improve. He wants to work on his leg strength to give him even more of a kick for that final 800-meter stretch run which is so crucial.
And that was coming off a stretch where the Centaurs had to compete at the Wickham Park Invite, hosted Norwich Free Academy and went to Fitch as well as the ECC championship all in under a two-week span.
Vince Bastura admitted he just made it to the finish line, finishing in seventh in 17:30.
Colton Sallum finished 16th for the Centaurs with Charles Cagiano in 29th and Joel Koleszar in 39th.
That left the Centaurs as the fourth-place finishers as a team.
E. Lyme finished with 48 points followed by Griswold (84), NFA (89) and then the Centaurs (94).
The Centaurs and every other cross-country team head to the state championships next Saturday. Woodstock will compete in the last race of the day at Wickham Park in Manchester, the Class MM championship at 3:50 p.m.
Menounos is looking forward to the state championship meet, in part, because he loves the Wickham Park course, its scenery, and the ending hill known affectionately as “the green monster” by runners.
Girls: Centaurs finish in familiar place
It seemed like every Woodstock runner had the same feeling.
The Centaurs love the Wickham Park course in Manchester, site of the State Class and State Open championships this weekend.
The Norwich Golf Course where the ECC girls’ cross-country championship was held on Thursday? Not so much.
“This is probably the hardest course I have ever run,” senior Lauren Brule said. “Compared to every single other one, this is very, very difficult.”
Brule led Woodstock to a third-place finish as a team as she placed 12th in 22 minutes, 11 seconds.
The Centaurs finished with 93 points, just behind E. Lyme (50) and Ledyard (72).
The team did come in a little short-handed. Junior Leila Khairetdinova was out with tendonitis and will likely also miss the state championship meet Oct. 29.
Brule said she went into Thursday’s race with the mindset that it was going to be difficult.
“There is a lot of uphill and not much downhill like coach Banas said it’s a “mountain goat” course. I kind of went into it knowing that I would not get a personal best time but I think I did pretty well for what the course is,” Brule said.
The senior took her coach’s advice and went out a bit slower, trying to avoid the “fire drill” mentality that most runners have in the championship race where they bolt from the starting line.
She was a bit behind teammate Julia Coyle but caught up to the junior in the last stretches of the race to finish as the first runner across the line for the Centaurs.
Coyle finished 16th, just one spot out from receiving a medal and T-shirt for her efforts. Coyle finished in 22:32, just three seconds ahead of freshman teammate Olivia Tracy in 17th and senior Sydney Lord was 29th. The good thing about that is both Coyle and Tracy along with Kira Greene, who finished 25th, will all return next year.
Marc Allard
Director of Sports Information
The Woodstock Academy
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