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Eastchester Surprise at ArdsleyPosted Friday, October 02, 2009 by Canis Latrans The Wednesday tri meet with Ardsley and Eastchester, at Ardsley's interesting and viewer friendly course, proved to be both exciting and surprising. The day was tougher on the band of battle tested parents than it was on the participants, thanks to a chilly wind and only a bit of sun.
As a change of pace, the girls varsity went out first. Eastchester had no team, so the race was between the host school and the Lady Bulldogs. Annie Field quickly moved to the front and the rest of the Irvington girls followed right in behind her looking strong. By the halfway mark, Field had taken a commanding lead while the next three Irvington runners took turns at position 2-4. The result was never in doubt, as Annie Field powered in, to take first place, followed by Edwina Picon, Christina Paparo and Sasha Zwiebel, to sweep the first four places. After Ardsley's first two runners captured fifth and sixth, Liz Hevern closed out the top five scoring with a solid run to take seventh overall. Julia Canning also had a strong outing and Aislinn Raftis looked very good to take a top seven team finish in her first varsity outing. The clear victory accentuated the team depth as both co-captains, Sarah Moore and Megan Talay had to drop out with medical issues. As the boys varsity race began, a number of the parents found themselves paraphasing a famous line from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, "Who are those Eastchester guys?" This fledgling team really made an impression as they unexpectedly made a real push to win their tri meet with a very strong running front pack. Julian Saliani moved in front fairly early, but for the first part of the race the Eastchester front duo stayed close and looked strong. Dennis Montaruli had another very good outing as he spent much of the first half of the race between Julian and the Eastchester leaders. Sam Lindberg was a bit further back and then Ardsley's lead runner and a mixed pack of Eastchester and Irvington runners, with Zach Siegel, Taira Davey and Sean Lippin running as a pack. Halfway into the race, the lead Eastchester runners got by Montaruli, but he shadowed them through the back half of the course. Lindberg kept adding in speed and was moving towards the front pack, chased by the number three Eastchester runner and Ardsley's number one. Behind him, the Dawg Pack of Siegal, Davey and Lippin moved in front of their group too. At the finish line, Julian Saliani glided in to take first with a comfortable margin with excitment brewing behind him as Montaruli passed the number two Eastchester runner and nearly caught the number one runner to give the team a third place finish overall. More excitment as Sam Lindberg came tearing down the hill to the dip before the finish line and fell! Sam, who had been working on a gymnastic finishing technic had not counted on the Eastchester runner behind him, being prepared for his scary manouver. The Eastchester runner tripped over Lindberg, but rolling into a tight tuck managed to pick up a lead of a couple of yards as both he and Sam rolled to their feet and sprinted to the finish line. Sam almost made up the distance finishing a couple of steps behind. Sean Lippin moved to the head of the Dawg Pack to lead a one, two, three, four finish with Taira, Zach and Brett Pastore, that sealed the victory for the Bulldogs. Macdaddy O'Conor had a nice finish, while Thomas Lindberg and Greg Kalvin also enjoyed good races. Reid Mitchell battled it out with Logan Muise again, this time beating his teammate to the finish line. Josh Bloom showed plenty of finishing speed, as he also had a good day. Next up, the St.Anthony Invitational at Sunken Meadow. This will be a real good test of how the team has developed as many of the top teams in the area will be in attendance including Bronxville.  |
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