Dealing With Unfamiliar Course, Tricky Conditions, PDS Cross Country Competes Well at County Meet
The Princeton Day School cross country team was venturing into the unknown as it competed in the Mercer County Championships last Friday at Thompson Park in Jamesburg.
“We have never run on this course before; we didn’t know it,” said PDS head coach Merrell Noden.
The team’s lack of familiarity with the surroundings didn’t dampen its competitive spirit.
“On a relatively tough day with the wind, I had advised my guys to tuck in behind other runners as best they could whenever they were going into the head wind,” said Noden, whose boys’ team finished 14th of 19 schools with junior Nick Chen placing 80th as he clocked a time of 20:07 over the 5,000-meter course and sophomore Kevin Sun coming in 81st.
“With those things taken into account, we didn’t run too badly. We can be fairly pleased. Kevin Sun and Nick Chen both ran pretty well.”
As for the PDS girls’ squad, sophomore Morgan Mills set the pace as she took 47th in a time of 22:47 while junior Emma Sharer took 59th.
“We had a real trooper on the girls’ side in Morgan Mills, she had some Achilles problems and she has been sick,” said Noden, whose girls’ team placed 13th of 14 schools.
“Both of those have contributed to her not training as well or as much as we would have liked. I think she was very conscious of that as she went to the starting line. I really thought she would run 19:30 and she ran 22 something. There was a question whether she would run at all, she gutted it out for the team. We only had five scorers. We needed her if we were going to score as a team so I was pleased with that. Sharer had an OK race. We are such a walking wounded team. Tillie Lighte came out and ran her first race in a while. I was happy she did that so we could have a scoring five.”
With PDS wrapping up its season by competing in the state Prep B meet on October 29 at the Blair Academy, Noden wants to see his runners gut things out to the end.
“I am hoping we can pull it together; that is that last meet of the season so we have nothing to look forward to beyond that,” said Noden, who is hoping to have boys’ sophomore star Ian Moini back for the prep meet.
“The kids have been training for today and Wednesday. If we run smart races on Wednesday, I think we can do pretty well and end our season on a pleasing note.”