PHS Girls’ Cross Country Making Progress, Building Strong Pack for the Big Meets Ahead

Bill Alden

For the Princeton High girls’ cross country team, it was the first major test of the young season.

Facing perennial powers WW/P-N and WW/P-S last week at Veterans Park in Hamilton, PHS saw the meet as a measuring stick with the county and state competitions just around the corner.

While PHS didn’t prevail, it gave its highly regarded foes a run for their money. Led by precocious freshman Jenna Cody, who placed sixth individually, the Little Tigers lost 24-31 to WW/P-N and 25-30 to WW/P-S.

PHS head coach James Smirk, for his part, was pleasantly surprised by his team’s effort.

“I was real happy with how we performed,” said Smirk, who got a seventh place finish from senior co-captain Molly Lynch with junior Alice Fenley taking eighth.

“We had been running well physically but we hit a point where we were a little flat. The girls rose to the occasion; I think they saw that maybe we are better than we thought we are.”

Smirk is looking forward to seeing how much better Cody can get. “One of the best things about her is that she has a lot to learn,” said Smirk of the freshman who clocked a time of 19:43 over the 3.1-mile course in the meet with WW/P-N and WW/P-S.

“She has a lot of talent but she needs to learn how to race. It’s an exciting time; we are just starting to see what she can do. She is starting to do repeat work, she had only done long training in middle school.”

Cody’s improvement has been hastened by training with the battle-tested Lynch.

“Molly is a seasoned runner; she learned a lot from Suzanne Hansen when she was younger,” explained Smirk of Lynch who ran a time of 19:51 in the meet last week.

“She is now passing on tips to Jenna and working hard to help her mentally. Molly is pushing her and helping her develop her motivation.”

Lynch’s co-captain and classmate, Mina Juhn, pushed hard as she fought through an injury to take 12th in the meet.

“Mina is definitely a solid runner for us, week in, week out,” added Smirk.

“She can take on just about anybody’s No. 3 runner. She was less impressive last Tuesday because she was dealing with a slight quad problem. I wanted to sit her out but she said I couldn’t do that to her in her senior year.”

Junior transfer Fenley is becoming more and more impressive in her own right as she adjusts to the PHS approach.

“Alice is a pretty accomplished runner,” said Smirk of the former Florida resident.

“She didn’t have so much time to train this summer with her move. She is learning the team aspect that we emphasize. She has a great last mile. We are working on having Molly lead her up to get her in position for the last part of the race.”

In Smirk’s view, the performance last week shows that PHS could be in position to do some special things in the bigger meets ahead.

“We like to have 10 runners that are better than the other team’s fifth runner,” said Smirk, whose team is next in action when it competes on October 18 in the Old Bridge Classic at Thompson Park in Jamesburg.

“We don’t want to just have one or two good runners and settle for that. We want our first five to be within a minute. We had a good pack on Tuesday; we just need that pack to be one minute faster. When we run together, we are fine; when we don’t, we have problems. It’s hard work to get ready for that physically, emotionally, and mentally.”

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