State Troopers

Eldred’s Alex Campanella Just Misses Out On A State Title; Runners Struggle On Muddy Course That Reduced Times And Made Advances Toughest In The Middle Of The Pack; Warwick’s Grandanali and NFA’s Frontera Take 5^th In Class A Races; V.C.’s Cavalluzzo Finishes 8^th

^{NYSPHSAA Cross-Country State Championships}

By RICHARD A. ROSS

rross@sportsinsightsny.com

Two salient moments: Eldred's Alex Campanella comes up 1.5 seconds shy of a state title as Notre Dame-Batavia's Jeffrey Antolos edges him out at the finish line. Campanella's silver medal will provide him with even more motivation as he moves ahead. The speedy junior has one more year to garner the gold. A warm hug is shared by Valley Central junior Holly Cavalluzzo and NFA's Giana Frontera after the finish of the Class A girls race. Frontera was fifth and Cavalluzzo was eighth. The two have been at the top of the Section Nine Class A picture since the OCIAA and Section Nine races where Frontera prevailed in both.

^{VERONA, NY- “Excelsior,” the motto of New York State which means ever-upward was the title for the piece I wrote about last year’s NYSPHSAA Cross-Country Championships, an uplifting day in every sense of the word from the weather, to the course conditions at Pawling High School and capped off by the NYS record-setting performance of Cornwall’s Aisling Cuffe.}

Muddied but undaunted, Tri-Valley senior Jim Bernstein fights his way through the muddy course. He finished 29th far short of his expectations after winning his first-ever Section Nine championship.

^{There were many triumphs that day for runners from Section Nine and the piece was an honorarium to a meet which is the largest event put on NYSPHSAA during the year. Cadres of parents , friends and family swarm over the course trying to get a glimpse of runners as they travel over hill and dale. Year in and year out, this meet is spectacular and not enough can be said about the hundreds upon hundreds of runners who earned their way to states by dint of their outstanding seasons and sectional finishes.}

^{This year’s race for all of its grandeur and allure was far more trying than the one a year ago. The outstanding course at Vernon-Verona-Sherrill High School in Section III had been ground down into a muddy track by the unreal wet weather and by the pounding it took from the legions of runners who have traversed it. A day before the November 12 outing, Section Nine runners along with their counterparts from the states other ten sections had been working out on the sodden course.}

^{So even for the first runners on Championship Saturday, namely the boys from Class A,  the prospect for evincing quick times, making rapid cuts and passes and moving up in the pack were severely hampered by the conditions. As the day progressed, it only got worse so by the time the Class D girls were at it in the early afternoon, it was literally a slog through the bog.}

Eldred's Hunter Proscia was a medal winner with his 15th place finish.

^{As Tri-Valley girls coach Missy Iatauro pointed out to me before the races began as I expressed my concerns about how the Lady Bears would fare under such conditions, she reminded me, “It’s the same for everybody.”}

^{That it was and so by day’s end, despite many finishes by Section Nine kids that they assessed as less than what they had hoped for, the race was a great life learning experience. There are things over which we have little or no control. That not only includes the weather and things like race conditions, it also includes the talent and assets held by competitors you’ve never raced against.}

^{For Eldred junior Alex Campanella, that came home most profoundly in the final few meters of the Class D boys race, an encounter during which he and Notre Dame-Batavia’s Jeffrey Antolos had run shoulder-to-shoulder. Campanella led at the one-mile marker with a split of 5:19. He and Antolos would both average 5:39 over the muddy course and as they entered the track for the final leg of the race, Campanella had a narrow lead which disappeared in the final few meters as Antolos (17:29.4) put on an epic kick to outpace him by 1.5 seconds as the Eldred harrier crossed the line in 17:30.9 exactly 15 seconds faster than his time a year ago on the speedy course at Pawling High School. Last year’s 15th place finish galled Campanella and he vowed to go for the gold this time out. Silver it was instead but a glorious race nonetheless.}

Section Nine's Class B girls bolt out to a quick start.

^{Campanella was disappointed that he couldn’t hold onto the lead, but the stalwart three-season warrior resolved to return next year for one more crack at it. Heading to the Federation Race at Bowdoin Park in Wappingers Falls, he is still determined to make his mark there and move on to nationals.}

^{“The course was really tough.  It was a lot easier the first time I came here, “ he noted referencing Eldred’s visit to V-V-S earlier this fall. “It wasn’t the race I wanted. I slipped coming around the turn towards the final straightaway and then he got me,” he said while maintaining that he was not offering any excuses.  “Every step was slippery. I’ll come back next year, “ he averred.}

^{Campanella’s finish was the best of the day for Section Nine runners including senior teammate Hunter Proscia who won a medal with his 15th place finish in 18:34.2. Like Campanella, he made massive strides from last year to this sparked by a summer training regimen that would make grown men quiver. Last year he as  42nd at the state meet but running only 1.3 seconds faster than that outing had him a bit dismayed. He shook it off though, knowing that his brightest moments lie ahead in track this spring.}

Tri-Valley's girls along with other Section Nine contenders look all shiny and clean as they start off, but not for long as they soon were slaked with mud from the sodden course.

^{Proscia was in fifth at the one mile point but according to him, “Once we started going into the second mile, I didn’t make my move but kind of sat on it. I wasn’t able to make a move after that and I hovered around 15th the whole race.} 

^{The course was really rough. You couldn’t kick anywhere. I wasn’t concentrating on racing but more focused on where my next step was going..where I was going to run.”}

^{Seward’s boys took fourth overall among the 11 competing sections in the Class D boys race.}

^{Kudos to Eldred senior Christine Donnelly who finally made states in her fifth and final try. Donnelly was upbeat and proud of herself though she certainly had hopes of doing better than finishing 47th in 23:44.8.  “I’m proud of myself,” she averred.}

Eldred's Christine Donnelly made five years of hard work pay off by finally getting to states. It was not the finish she hoped for as she came in 47th but she was proud of her efforts nonetheless. Indoor and spring track await her senior year final exploits.

^{For Tri-Valley’s Jim Bernstein in this second trip to states, particularly behind his first-ever Section Nine championship, was hopefully going to be a watershed moment. Bernstein was going to have to run this race without teammate Omar Lopez who hurt his ankle in the Section Nine championships though he still qualified with his seventh place finish.}

^{Bernstein had run on the V-V-S course the day before and knew it was muddy, but the race itself proved to be an eye-opener. Bolting out to a good start, the stalwart senior soon found himself not only encased in mud, but also enclosed within a pack of runners that made up the rear of the top third of the Class C entourage.}

^{With very poor traction and no place to make clean cuts to move ahead, Bernstein was frustrated as he realized the impossibility of moving ahead.  He finished in 29th in 18:36.4. Slaked with mud he retired to the bench in the finish area and took it all in. “At the beginning I got boxed in a little bit and then I tried to pass on the outside.  When I tried to get of the box I didn’t do what I should have done. I conserved a little towards the end of the race. The leader went out really fast. It was hard to  keep contact with him,” he noted. “It was a mud hole. I almost fell a couple of times and I was slipping a lot, especially on turns.}

Revolutionary War re-enactor Bob Allers of Deansboro, NY readies his 1745 British Brown Betty replica musket for the firing of the start of each race.

^{Bernstein was stlll able to revel in the honor of being at states for the second year. His progress was notable moving up from 53rd a year ago but the slippage in time was unexpected given his blistering pace in the Section Nine meet. In cross-country,  times vary from meet to meet where courses and conditions vary immensely.  “On to indoor!” he vowed.}

^{Sullivan West’s Reed Scott was running in his first-ever state meet. Realizing the caliber of the runners in the fray and the hellacious conditions,  he hoped to finish in the top 50  but had to settle for 57th in 19:14.6.  “It was kind of hard. I slipped a little bit  here and there but I didn’t actually fall. In the beginning there was a huge crowd. It’s a lot different from any other race I’ve been in where I’m used to having space to move,” he observed.}  

^{Livingston Manor’s Neal Mock also expressed his troubles with the muddy course in his Class D run in which he palceed 52nd in 20:01.  “Mud kicked everywhere, mud in your face and mud on your back. All the narrow trails  and all the mud,  I couldn’t get a kick anywhere. It was really hard to pass people.}

Warwick's Patrizio Grandinali shows the trappings of running through the mud as he holds his fifth place spot in the Class A race. Warwick finished fifth as a team.

^{The girls races would produce more of the same for most Section Nine runners, but not for NFA sophomore Gianna Frontera who finished fifth in 19:42.7. She and  West Gennesee’s Laura Leff who finished 2nd, broke up the potential 1-5 sweep by the nation’s top-ranked team Fayetteville-Manlius which took first, third, fourth, fifth and seventh for another outstanding 15 point sweeping  finish.  It was F-M’s sixth straight state title and its third year with a perfect 15!}

^{Frontera who finished ahead of Valley Central’s Holly Cavalluzzo in both the OCIAA and Section Nien championships, did so again as Cavalluzzo came in eighth in 20:01.6 to earn a medal. The speedy junior improved over her 11th place finish in Class AA a year ago though her time, like most runners was off the pace of the speedy Section In course in 2010. The two shared a big hug after the race. Their times of pushing each other are far from over.}

Monticello eighth grader Camryn Johnson crosses the finish line with a valuable first-time experience at states.

^{In the Class C race, the gritty Tri-Valley girls were hoping for strong finish to their outstanding season but like so many others, they succumbed to the same narrative: mud and poor traction.  They finished ninth overall out of the 11 sections. Eighth grader Autumn Bender was 48th in 22:43.9, an improvement over last year’s 52nd place finish but slower in time than a year ago’s 21:16.1. Sophomore Sabrena Smith was the next closest in 57th place with a time of 23:46.4. She was followed by senior Olivia Rehm in 74th in 23:46. The other three T-V finishers were sophomore  Brooke Gillete in 86th (24:15.5) , junior Danielle Graham in 93rd in 24:02 and  freshman Alex Brooks in 121st in 27:00. Brooks has missed much of this fall’s running and is just starting to come back.}

^{All of the T-V runners except Rehm will be back at in the fall and though Smith starts basketball two days after this race, the rest of the crew moves on to indoor track where they plan on defending their Section Nine title.}

^{Exhausted from the 5:00 am wake up, the three hour drive and the running I did from start to view points to finish chutes, I headed home glad that I had come. Though I know many of the kids weren’t satisfied with the results of their efforts, this writer was greatly impressed by their resiliency and determination nonetheless.}

Last minute counsel from Sullivan West coach George Shakelton is imparted to first-time state contender Reed Scott. For Scott and other underclassmen with the chance to return, this year's race was a great learning curve.

^{That will do it for me for fall coverage this year. A couple of high school awards presentations this week and then it’s on to winter endeavors after a short hiatus to catch my breath.}

^{For an album of photos visit www.sportsinsights.smugmug.com}