SOUTH ORANGE, NJ – The small team from Our Lady of Sorrows opened the cross-country season at the 21st Assumption Meet by scoring impressively in three of the six races held that day.
OLS had three top-five finishers and one top 10 finisher in a field of 16 schools. OLS finished sixth, a little off last year’s pace due to graduation of two of its best runners.
The scoring opened with the third grade boys when Joe Schmidt picked up two places in the last 150 yards to place second, just two seconds behind the winner. He was followed by second-grader Chris Schmidt in eighth. Emma Torres took fifth in the Girls Fifth & Sixth Division in what was probably her best cross-country performance ever, while seventh-grader Jared Edwards ran fourth in the fastest race of the day, the Boys Seventh & Eighth.
Sorrows had two medalists who just missed scoring. Maudie-Grace Lomuscio’s 11th place in the Girls Fourth Grade race was not even two seconds behind the scorers, despite her fall in the middle of the race. Brendan McKeown finished 11th also, just 1.1 seconds out of scoring!
There were other impressive beginnings, too. Angelica Ciuffo, in her first race, placed 16th in the Third Grade race. Christina Paul finished strongly in the same race. Watch for them to improve rapidly. Isabel Sabnekar got a little too close to nature when she fell over tree roots. But she picked herself up and finished 17th in the Girls Fourth Grade race. Molly Donohue proved how fast the 2017 races were compared to last year by running 30 seconds faster but a couple of places farther behind. Wrapping up the team effort were Tyler Craig, who finished in the middle of the Boys Fifth & Sixth pack in his first race ever, Aryan Sabnekar, Sergio Marian and Declan Tynan.
With the arrival of a few key runners, the team is expected to be entering its prime just in time for the 19th Annual OLS Fall Festival on Saturday, Oct. 7, at Flood’s Hill in South Orange.
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