Our Lady of Sorrows cross-country season begins

SOUTH ORANGE, NJ – Our Lady of Sorrows opened the cross-country season at Loantaka Park in Morristown at the 22nd Annual Assumption School Invitational on Saturday with a dozen runners from the third to fourth grades. The results were mixed, but pointed to much better performances in the near future.

Benjamin Bernard, in his first race, delighted the OLS crowd with a fourth-place finish in the Third Grade Boys race. He confidently expects to improve on that in the following weeks.

Christopher Schmidt and Peter Dio confused their pre-race instructions and found themselves behind the entire Fourth Grade Boys field entering the wooded part of the course. They recovered somewhat with Christopher placing eighth and Peter, 22nd.

Even before the Fifth and Sixth Grade boys toed the starting line, OLS had suffered a disaster. Joseph Schmidt, the leader of the crew, who was expected to finish deep into the top 10, broke his toe the previous day. However, the Dunmeyers, Alfonso and Raphael, both fifth-graders, took 11th and 12th. Tyler Craig and Aryan Sabneker finished with the main part of the Seventh and Eighth Grade Boys event.

Maudie Grace Lomuscio and Isabel Sabnekar had great success as fifth graders last year, finishing from fifth to 10th in the later races of the season.

Not satisfied, they worked on a plan to seize first. They held to the plan as long as they could with Maudie Grace finishing fifth, while Isabel finished in the middle of the pack.

Zoey Ruplal finished strongly in her first cross-country race. Emma Torres and Halle Jules, injured during last year’s cross-country season, finished strongly after their long lay-off with Emma placing 12th and Halle in the pack.

The 20th running of the OLS Fall Classic will be held at Flood’s Hill on Saturday, Oct. 5.