MySportsResults.com – News – Nike Cross Regionals Northeast Recap

By Senior Correspondent Marty Ogden, Editing and Graphics by Ron Knapp

RESULTS – VIDEOS – PHOTOS

If you are a cross country purest in the Northeast, Bowdoin Park in Wappinger Falls was the place to be. About 120 teams from nine northeastern states descended on the park for a chance to qualify for Nike Cross Country Nationals on December 7th in Portland, Oregon. The top two finishers punched their ticket to an all expense paid trip while third and fourth teams throughout the country have to wait until next Saturday to find out who earned one of the four wild card spots into nationals. New York had its own regional race with the other eight states competing in the Northeast region. There were also six other Open races for teams not looking to qualify for nationals. 

Ridgefield boys, the CT State Open and New England champion finished in the third for the second year in a row. New Jersey champions Christian Brothers Academy, the #2 nationally ranked team, easily won and qualified for NXN for the 15th time in 19 years. Joe Barrett won as expected, crossing the line with arms raised in 15:29 with four of his teammates crossing the line in the top 16 scoring places. CBA became the first team to average under 16 minutes on the course, breaking their own record they set in September. The Tigers, the 2nd ranked team in the region, were only 11 points behind Nittany Track Club (State College HS, PA). 

Charlie Lovett, who has been injured most of the season and only started his racing season at the State Open led Ridgefield in 13th place in a time of 16:11.9 over the very tough 5000m course. Regular pacesetter Magnus Manley was 17th, less than four seconds behind. Trevor Fuller was 28th in 16:32.0 with Aidan Nelson (48th) in 16:48.2 and Alexander Glenn (86th in 17:11.8) rounding out their scoring places. All New England runner Sullivan Dunn was a little off and finished 123rd in 17:23.0.

Ridgefield boys filling out their paperwork for NXN, with hopes of earning a wild card spot.

New England is sending four runners to Nationals as individuals. Alex Fisher of Loomis Chaffe (CT), Marshall Vernon of La Salle Academy (RI), Sean Gray of Portsmouth (RI) and Mathew Giardin of Bishop Guertin (NH) finished 2nd, 4th, 6th and 7th. 

Fisher discovered the brutality of the Bowdoin course for the first time. “All the other regions have nothing on this. This is my first time running this course and it is deadly. Even how it narrows down, it is hard to get position. I had to…