Holiday Classic Acceptances

The Marine Corps Holiday Classic will be contested two days after Christmas as always and, once again, more than 125 schools will be on hand. The girls' 800-meter run will match up teammates Emma Gallagher and Emily O'Neil of Garden City (N.Y.). Jhanee Sterrett of Brooklyn's Boys & Girls is the third seed.

Gallagher ran 2:10.80 at the Loucks Games last spring as an eighth grader while O'Neill ran 2:12.98 last year as a seventh grader. The current New York State indoor record for eighth graders is 2:13.14 by Brianna Welch of North Shore in 2006, while the freshman state record is 2:08.04 by Shola Lynch in 1984.

The boys' 800-meter race will see Strymar Livingston of Christopher Columbus make his season debut after skipping the Loughlin Games with illness. Livingston — who broke the 600-meter national record twice last winter — has an 800-meter career best of 1:52.47.

The next seed after Livingston is Isaac Clark of Pleasantville, N.J., who placed sixth last week in the 600-meter dash at Loughlin when he ran 1:23.27. Drew Magaha of Upper Moreland, Pa., comes in with a career best of 1:52.17. Also in the race is New York City's own Robert Rhodes of Boys & Girls won the 1,000-meter run last weekend in 2:31.13.

The other featured events of the meet are the boys' and girls' distance medleys. The top seed for the girls is Long Island's North Shore, which shattered the national record in the 4x1500-meter relay last Friday. New Jersey powers Ocean City, Hunterdon Central and Columbia are all entered as well.

The boys' distance medley features Foot Locker National champion Edward Cheserek and the Nike Cross National teams champions Christian Brothers Academy of Lincroft, N.J. Cheserek — who ran 4:09.90 for the mile at the Loughlin Games after a slow first quarter-mile — is expected to anchor his team. Last spring he did just that when St. Benedict's ran 9:51.97, the third-best time is U.S. history.

CBA has two teams entered in the race — and with its depth who can argue that. Rush-Henrietta (N.Y.) — a team many feel could have been invited to Nike Cross Nationals — is seeded fifth. Other top seeds, all from the Empire State, include St. John the Baptist, Monsignor Farrell and St. Anthony's.

Girls' Invitational 800-Meter Run

Girls' Distance Medley Relay

*Other teams will be moved up the day of the event.

Boys' Invitational 800-Meter Run

Boys' Distance Medley Relay

If you are scratching from an event, please e-mail Louis.Vazquez@parks.nyc.gov