Cross Country striding to States

DeMatha Cross Country is on a roll this season with nine races under their belts. They will conclude their season with the Maryland Private School State Championship on November 6. Last week they competed at the WCAC Championship where the Varsity team placed 9th, JV placed 4th, and the freshmen placed 5th.

Sophomore Dominic Hilton, one of the team’s top runners, said that the varsity squad’s poor performance in the WCAC’s was because “the day heated up fast, and varsity’s race didn’t go very well. The team definitely fell out early, and no one on varsity managed a PR.”

Senior Joe LeGloahec, one of the team’s co-captains, said, “This season went well in terms of team development. Everyone definitely got faster throughout the year. All courses can be different, so times can vary heavily, but overall the team definitely got faster. Our JV specifically had a lot of growth, and all runners were able to break thirty minutes by the championships.”

The team was on a hot streak before WCAC’s with an average finish of 12th throughout their first eight meets, some of them contested in large fields. One of the highlights of the season was at the Maryland XC Invitational when Lucas Moisiuk, a sophomore, broke 18 minutes for the first time. He is the 34th DeMatha runner since 2000 to reach the 17s and he’s only 13 seconds off the 15th fastest time ever run by a DeMatha sophomore.

States will be the last chance for the team to show off what it’s got.