PSAL Cross Country Rankings
by Pete Whitehouse
Pre-Season
– Week 4 – Week 6 – City
Champs Preview
PSAL Girls Cross Country; Team Rankings
and City Championship Preview
By Pete Whitehouse
McKee Staten Island Tech began the season ranked ahead of all other PSAL teams and far ahead of their most formidable rival, Harris HS. Tech is still on top but Harris is closer than they have ever been. The key to Tech’s potential victory over Harris in the upcoming city championship meet is depth. The MSIT people are solid through five, seven and even into the JV. The Harris team is structured differently.
Harris may put their first runner in before Tech’s, but it is almost certain that Tech will have at least their five scorers and perhaps their whole team in before Harris’s fifth. This should be decisive.
Harris though, unlike Tech has an incentive like no other. Last year they were defending city champions and many picked them to repeat. They failed to even secure one of the top four positions and qualify for the state meet.
Teams likely to finish third and fourth, and qualify along with MSIT and Harris for the state meet are Curtis and Stuyvesant. Likely does not mean assured. These two teams must hold off the fast-charging Boys and Girls team and the amply talented Clinton runners. Boys and Girls especially must be watched closely. If their fifth runner has a breakout day, they could do more than just qualify for the state.
The favorite to win the individual race has just lately gained that status, but Kathryn Dubowski of Harris has been on route all season. Dubowski has just gotten better and better since her opener. Close to Dubowski is Jamaica’s Alexandra Condell. Condell is in fact better at 2.5 miles, but Dubowski has the upper hand at the 5K city championship distance. But here again the shadow of Boys and Girls HS looms. Adrenee Sterrett of B/G is fully capable of playing the spoiler and winning it all.
The Rankings;
1. McKee SI Tech
2. Harris
3. Curtis
4. Stuyvesant
5. Boys and Girls
6. Clinton
7. Port Richmond
8. Tottenville
9. Barton
10. South Shore
PSAL Boys Cross Country; Team Rankings
and City Championship Preview
By Pete Whitehouse
It’s not difficult to pick the team favorite to win the upcoming boys PSAL cross country championship. In fact this reporter was even able to pick five of them! Yes that’s how close this meet promises to be.
The contenders include Curtis, Erasmus, Midwood, Stuyvesant and Clinton. In a meet this close it’s interesting to see what each team might need to do to gain that slight edge that could assure them the title. Curtis, currently top-ranked, recently ran its first 5K of the season in winning the borough meet. All doubts were thereby erased. They more than proved themselves at that distance. A Curtis strategy
Could thus be; change nothing, just hold it together. They are ready.
Erasmus and Clinton currently suffer from an unseemly and unacceptable gap between their fourth and fifth men. They both have to find a way somehow to close that gap. These two teams have experienced coaches who know ways to do this.
The Stuyvesant and Midwood teams are the only ones among the five contenders that are without an “ace”, or star front-runner. This actually puts them in one way at an advantage. A massive breakdown their number one athlete could be better absorbed. The coaches of these two teams would be well served with a strategy that simply reminded their boys that if each improved “slightly” on race day that would cumulatively have a very great positive effect.
The individual race winner is normally more difficult to call than the team race. Not so in this meet. Brooklyn International’s Girma Segni is unbeaten in PSAL competition. Normally Segni would be the favorite, but his team did not qualify for the championship race. Unless his team petitions to be in the championship race and the petition is granted, he will not win the city championship race. He will run in the individual race.
This makes the gold medal favorite James Mulligan of Bronx Science, who’s best 5K time at Van Cortlandt Park is actually only about a second behind Segni. Next comes Chris Greene of McKee SI Tech. He is also very close to Segni and Mulligan, and joins them as one of only three PSAL runners under the 17-minute mark at VCP for 5K.
The top PSAL boys cross country teams continue to be tightly ranked as under a single spotlight after last weekend’s action and inaction. Last week’s leader, Midwood competed over a 5K course in the Suffolk Coaches meet in Bethpage, LI. and placed five runners within a half minute of each other. All were under 18 minutes. No other PSAL team has as yet done that.
Ranked second is Stuyvesant, which recorded the league’s best five-man average over 2.5 miles. Coach Mark Mendes’s team took third in the B race in the Fordham U. meet at Van Cortlandt Park. Their average was approximately 14:07.8.
Curtis HS, which did not compete, holds down the third slot this week. The next three positions are unchanged from the previous poll. Teams in places seven and eight, George Washington and Brooklyn Tech, are “shinny and new”. Each was unranked until now.
George Washington, a traditional power from Manhattan is back, led by the sterling running of senior Jeremia Paniagua who clocked 13:42 at Fordham. Place eight is Brooklyn Tech, likewise led by a standout guy. Particio Guaiquil helped the Engineers to their ranking with his 13:46 in the same meet.
The girls’ teams, through the top seven ranked teams, ran to form this weekend in a remarkable way. Rankings alone though do not measure “degrees” of change. The MSIT girls remain number one by virtue of their work at the Brown U Invitational in Rhode Island, (7th in the loaded championship race). BUT! Harris, ranked number two, meanwhile appeared to move closer to the excellence of MSIT. They convincingly won the B race at Fordham behind the PR running of Kathryn Dubowski (16:20).
Holding on to place three is Stuyvesant, whose leader Laura Coogan also ran a PR in 16:20 in the same race, helping the Stuyvesant team finish third. They clearly solidified their ranking.
The only newcomer to the girl’s top ten was Boys and Girls HS. The Fordham meet was their coming out party. They enter the rankings at number eight. All other girls’ teams are in their familiar positions.
The accolades went to the Clinton boys and the Townsend Harris girls at the PSAL Invitational Cross Country meet last Saturday at Van Cortlandt. Each school won a varsity race with the best aggregate times among all PSAL schools.
Clinton therefore moved into the top position in the PSAL rankings. Harris on the other hand must wait for a showdown with the McKee SI Tech girls to see if they can be deemed number one. MSIT did not run their varsity team at the Invitational. Instead they chose the more picturesque Sunken Meadow State Park venue and the St. Anthony’s Invitational this weekend.
The MSIT girls finished seventh in their race with two of their girls running under 17 minutes over the 2.5-mile course. Tech’s depth continues to impress. Though the course at VCP is acknowledged to be somewhat tougher than SMSP, only four PSAL girls in total dipped under the 17-minute barrier at the PSAL Invitational. Tops for the league was Alex Condell of Jamaica HS at 16:04.74.
In the rankings after MSIT and Harris, (two schools that have held their spots since the start of the season), there followed what has also been typical since day one, rearrangements. Last week’s number three team Clinton was beaten by Clara Barton, coached by a shocked Holly Bishop. Now ranked number three, Barton was only fifth last week. Bishop explained the turnabout by “some of our girls really stepping up, like Carla Joseph,” (24th). The top runner for Barton was the reliable Tisha Clarke, who was 10th in 17:31. Clarke attributed her season-long success to her decision to “run with the front pack in races.”
At places four five six and seven on the girl’s list are Clinton, Port Richmond, Curtis and Styvvesant, all rearranged from last week. Curtis, Clinton and Stuyvesant are down, Port Richmond up. The list finishes with Tottenville, Truman and AP Randolph, Saturday’s races justifed exactly the positions they held last week.
On the boys list after Clinton come Stuyvesant, Midwood and Curtis in almost an arbitrary order. In fact there is very little space separating all four top teams. Midwood competed in Delaware on Saturday and ran very well, but comparisons are difficult due to course differences. Curtis ran well at the Invitational, but only unofficially, since their team was disqualified for competing with an unregistered athlete. And finally Stuyvesant, missing their top runner at the Invitational, still hasn’t show their full potential.
The so-called bottom six places on the boys list are clearly on a lesser plain than the top four at this time. But that could change. For different reasons each could break into the vaunted circle of the four.
Pre-Season
In the absence of any new hard statistics pre-season polls tend to be about history, reputations and the latest gossip. These indicators seem to place the boys from Curtis and the girls from McKee Staten Island Tech in exactly the same positions this season as they finished last season, ahead of all other PSAL cross country teams.
Curtis coach Ron Banks has his boys intent on repeating their ’02 success. They have frequently been sighted during the summer training in Staten Island’s Clove Lake Park. The MSIT girls, under the experienced eye of coach Mary Brooks, demonstrated in camp they are far beyond the “getting-into-shape” phase of training.
The boy’s poll however is typically tight. Curtis included, the top teams are viewed as the typical tangle of near-equals. Second-ranked McKee SI Tech is ahead of number three Stuyvesant only because of experience. Similarly, Tottenville’s solid seniors edge them team only slightly ahead of a rebuilding Midwood team for place four.
The Bayside boys were expected to drop considerably this year compared to last. Reports say however they had a fine camp; this and the exceptional coaching expected of Frank Waters lifts them to number six.
The remaining top ten positions are “rubber band teams.” They are poised and full of potential. The rubber band could release and propel them considerably ahead. But it could also snap and see them flop.
The girl’s poll has been imaginatively described as “MSIT number one, then comes the Atlantic Ocean, and after that, the rest of the city.” This might not be too far from the truth! Last year’s city champion team is returning 100% of its personnel.
Harris HS, the city champ of two years ago, and a young and talented Curtis HS team could unset…but if that happened the word could never be written in lower case letters. At places 4-5-6, Boys and Girls, Port Richmond and Stuyvesant are all good teams with some serious questions yet to be answered. Will James Jackson be able to reprogram from track to cross country, some of his fine athletes at Boys and Girls? Will the highly talented Laura Coogan of Stuyvesant have a credible supporting cast of runners behind her? Will Port Richmond survive still another coaching change? This will be their ninth (yes NINTH) coaching change in three years.
The final four places on the girl’s top ten list are particularly well-coached teams but lack sufficient talent through seven runners. It will be a proud testament to the coaches and athletes of these schools if they can remain in the top ten all season.
The rankings
Boys
Additional boys teams to watch; Francis Lewis, Erasmus, and South Shore.
Girls
1. McKee SI Tech
2. Harris
3. Curtis
4. Boys and Girls
5. Port Richmond
6. Stuyvesant
7. Clinton
8. Tottenville
9. Hunter
10.Truman
Additional girls teams to watch; South Shore and AP Randolph.