Girl's Cross Country Eases Past NMH for Rebound Victory

EXETER - Coming off of a tough loss against St. Paul’s and Andover last Wednesday at St. Paul’s, girls’ cross country rallied back to take their home meet against Northfield Mount Hermon on Saturday, bringing their record this season to 3-1.Running in packs to motivate each other through the tough, misty and cool running conditions, the girls, led by prep Christine Hu and upper Michaela Morris, took consecutively places 2-9 in the race. Hu was two seconds away from achieving an under-20 minute Hall of Fame time, coming in at second place overall with a time of 20:01. She was followed closely by Morris, with a time of 20:28, and upper Elsa Chinburg, with a time of 20:35.An NMH runner, Caroline Sullivan, edged closer to a record for PEA’s home course with a first-place time of 18:38.Many on the team felt that everyone was particularly motivated to perform well in this meet in light of their loss last Wednesday.“The loss on Wednesday against St. Paul’s and Andover was really tough, but I think it gave the entire team even more incentive to do well in this next meet. We wanted to redeem ourselves,” senior co-captain Valerie Bright said.Upper Olivia Pritchard, who placed sixth overall in the race, shared Bright’s sentiments. “Our course is flatter than St. Paul’s, which may attribute to some of the faster times, but I honestly think everyone dropped times anyways. We were all especially inspired to push ourselves this week.”Bright added that the presence of relatives visiting for Family Weekend at the race further inspired the girls to persevere and come out strong.“When your parents are there watching you, you really want to impress them and show them what you do at Exeter,” she said. “This is exaggerated in our circumstances because our parents really only get to see us race once or twice a year, if even that.”The workouts the girls did last week mastering particularly challenging sections of PEA’s home course also helped the girls during the meet.“In the week before the race, we had practices focusing on specific parts of the course, which definitely helped there were turns we did differently, places we could push harder. I think we ended up having a pretty big home advantage,” Hu said.Head coach Gwynneth Coogan continues to keep sight of the team’s overarching goal to perform well at Interschols this season. She believes that the girls’ performances thus far are a good indication of their potential.“Certainly Andover and St. Paul’s are very strong this year, but there are going to be 12 other schools competing, so if we can race as well as we raced against them on Wednesday, there’s no reason why we can’t be in the top four at Interschols,” Coogan said.Coogan added that many members of the team have a great capacity to further improve throughout the season.“We have a group of three people up front, and if they can continue to inspire each other, there’s no telling what they can do. We also have a very strong group of girls who have been running since their prep year, and a strong group of preps,” she said. “There’s so much potential.”Big Red’s next meet will take place at Deerfield’s course on Saturday, where the girls will strive to bring their season record to 4-1.