This past weekend the 2008 "campaign" ended with a strong performance at the state meet in Columbus. It marked the 8th trip in the past 9 years to the state meet - no other girls Division one program has gone more often than SJA (Colerain, the cotton candy team, has also been there 8 times). The temps got pretty warm by the last race of the day so overall the field ran fairly slow. However our team ran very well for themselves. The team finished 12th out of 16 teams, which was actually higher than predicted by the state coaches poll.
Leading the way this time around was freshman Jessica Sirchen, who PR'd (one of the few in the whole field) in 19:44. Senior Kelly Gallagher was next in 19:55. Juniors Gabby Kreuz and Taylor Whisler both missed PR's by 2 seconds (20:19 and 20:31) to finish 3rd and 4th for SJA. Senior Kristin Karn held on to finish 5th in 20:34. Erin Gaffney, 21:05, and sister Hannah Gaffney, 21:45, rounded out the line-up for the Jags.
It has been a fantastic year, and as mentioned at the banquet on Nov 5th, much of the credit has to go to the senior captains (Kelly Gallagher, Colleen Gallagher, Melissa Bresnahan) and the team itself. But a lot of the credit has to go to the runners who came before them including the seniors from last year. Tradition goes a long way, but classy behavior takes it the rest of the way.
Be sure to check out the poem link on the right as well as the updated class record and all-time list.
