Girls' Cross Country Outlasts NMH
Even with cloudy skies and rainy weather, Exeter girls’ cross country came out strong and won the meet against Northfield Mount Hermon (NMH). Big Red dominated the race, having nine runners finish before NMH’s first two.
To prepare for the tough course, the team endured a hard workout last week at Dame Road, a nearby dirt trail with lots of hills. In addition to preparing for the trail, the girls lifted, stretched and did pool running on Thursday. “We’ve been training hard these past few weeks but we lightened up on our training a little bit this past week to rest up and prepare for this meet,” senior and co-captain Grace Gray, said. To get everybody pumped up for the Saturday race, Friday was dress-up day and everyone showed up to practice in wacky outfits.
Going into the meet, the girls wanted to lay everything they had on the course. Senior Alexandra Van Dijkum explained that “our goal for this meet was just to go out and run.” Even with teammates taking the PSAT early that morning and knowing that NMH has one of the hilliest courses in the league, “[the team was] excited because it was our first duel meet of the season,” senior Gabby Allen explained.
Throughout the race, cheers could be heard from teammate to teammate, especially during harder parts of the course. The girls praised each other for being very supportive and friendly and making the meets fun to compete in. “I almost always heard words of encouragement in between breaths of death trying to get up those hard hills,” lower Caroline Luff said.
The team is very proud of its efforts on Saturday, and is glad to take home the results it got. While the girls ran well overall, there were some specific highlights and stand out runners from the weekend. For example, both Van Dijkum and Gray explained how it was senior co-captain Ashley Lin’s first week back from an injury. They applauded her performance, with Van Dijkum saying, “She did an amazing job,” and Gray adding, “[Lin] absolutely killed it.”
Gray also lauded the performances of some of the younger members of the team. “There were so many awesome performances to highlight, but I’d like to shout-out two of our preps Sydney Kang and Sophia Fields, who both ran amazing races,” she said.
The girls’ cross country team takes on Deerfield next weekend on home turf, which will be a big meet because it’s the first home meet of the year. This week, the girls will continue their strenuous practices and Gray hopes for the “[the team] to come back better than ever at the family weekend meet.” Now that they are in the duel meet section of the season, the team is starting to look towards the Interschols meet which is the final championship meet of the season. The team will continue to work hard during practices and meets to, as Allen said, “come out on top” against their future opponents.