Surfin' Safari

The rain kept coming down on Friday afternoon, the course getting worse and worse. With standing water all over the starting area, meet director Jim Schlentz was getting more worried by the minute.

But the rain stopped and the course dried a bit, though it remained quite sloppy throughout the day, even though no rain fell and the sun even appeared from time to time.

As if Schlentz didn't have enough to worry about, the timing company had two timing devices malfunction, which required all times to be manually entered for all races — something that added hours of work to the already busy job. Team scores were calculated quickly, but coaches had to head home to wait patiently for the complete results to be posted. Coaches and patience don't always mix. Today they had to.

The Girls Varsity B Race was won by Pearl River (N.Y.), 37-63, over Rockland County rival Suffern (N.Y.). Pearl River had a 12-13 lead through the top three scorers but picked up 10 and 15 points each on Suffern's fourth and fifth girls. Coach Dan Doherty was pleased with the progress his squad has made in a week.

"We are moving in the right direction. Some girls had some minor problems earlier in the season and are just starting to come around. Hopefully we will continue to get better week by week."

Dana Giordano of Bernards (N.J.) won the Varsity C race in 18:10. Giordano's course record of 18:08 had been shattered by over a minute earlier in the day (results were unavailable at press time), but she still managed to run well and beat a very good runner in Nisa Cicitta of Voorhees. Voorhees — the No. 1-ranked girls squad in New Jersey — easily won the team title over Bernards, 39-97, averaging 19:14.

Megan Young of Nanuet (N.Y.) lead her squad to victory by winning the Varsity D Race in 18:16. The Knights bested Haddonfield Memorial (N.J.), 74-94, and averaged 19:57. Nanuet placed five girls in the top 28.

St. John the Baptist (N.Y.) looked very impressive in winning the Boys Varsity A race, 71-118, over South Brunswick (N.J.). The team average of 16:31 was the best in the day, earning SJB the right to cut the line on the famed Green Lantern ride at the Six Flags Theme Park. Sean Ferguson led the team in seventh place with a time of 16:12 and the rest of the top five all came in under 16:45.

Somers (N.Y.) beat Ramsey (N.J.), 77-91, in the Varsity C race despite Ramsey's 2-3 finish by Chris Elringham and Erik Buser. Somers Justin Zorn and David Sammel crossed the line in sixth and seventh and saw teammates place 11-23-30 to Ramsey's 21-32-33.

The last race of the day saw the fastest boys' time as Dobbs Ferry's (N.Y) Brendan Wortner blizted a 15:44 to beat Collegiate's (N.Y.) Will McDuffe's 15:49. Ryan Phillips of Regis (N.Y.) took his first defeat of the season as he crossed the line third in 15:54. All three were among the day's seven fastest.