—by Phil Kantaros

At 7 am on Wednesday, November 7, the Storm cross country teams packed lunches in the dining hall and boarded a bus bound for New Jersey’s Peddie School to compete in the MAPL meets.  The weather was a bit cold and windy, but that didn’t stop Storm runners from racking up a whole host of personal records (PR’s).

Leading the pack in the men’s varsity 5k run was Storm standout James Finucane ’08 who smashed the course record to post an incredible time of 15:55.  Richard Lafferty of the Hill School came in second with a time of 16:37, while Mercersburg’s Ellis Mays ’10 placed eighth with an impressive time of 17:25.  “In my tenth-grade year,” joked Finucane, “I placed eighth just like Ellis.  So he’s next up for winning the race in 2008!”

I spoke with Finucane and with Annie Spencer ’08, who finished third with a time of 19:40, just ten seconds behind the winner, Katherine Warren of Peddie.  Finucane said, “I knew there were five guys who could run under 17:00.  I won the race last year, so I really set my sights on beating the course record this time.  For the first mile, I stayed behind the leaders and at the first mile marker I was right on track at 4:50.  At the 1.25 mile mark, I decided that breaking the course record meant taking the lead and keeping it.  The course was fairly flat, and the wind was the only thing that was slowing us down.  I really didn’t want to ‘sit and kick’ too late.  It felt great to finally break 16:00 because there were other meets in which I thought I could have done it.”

The men’s race started at 2:00 pm, and at 2:30 it was time for the women’s run.  Annie noted that she was “trying to do what I did last year, but I managed to run a personal best ever, beating my previous best by about thirty seconds.  I wasn’t thinking about miles or anything, only about pushing myself.  I heard the time 5:45 shouted out at the first mile.  I just wanted to keep moving; I didn’t want to finish the race with any regrets.”

Spencer was running with teammate and ninth-grade star Mackenzie Riford, who finished fourth, just five seconds behind Spencer.  The two pushed each other along.  “Mackenzie and I were in rhythm.  With 1/4 mile left to go, she told me to go ahead.  So I took off.  I don’t know if Mackenzie could have taken it, but when she let me go, I went, and it just made me want go harder, because I knew she wanted me to do really well.”   

Head coach Betsy Willis noted that, “every athlete on the team ran a season PR for 2007, while eighty percent of the kids ran lifetime PR's today.  On average, the boys improved their PR's by 31 seconds and the girls improved their PR's by 51 seconds.  It was a fantastic meet and a great end to the season.  Congratulations to all of the athletes on a job well done.”

On Saturday, October 27, Mercersburg hosted the Pennsylvania Independent Schools Cross-Country Championship.  There the Storm’s women runners finished second out of thirteen teams.  Lena Finucane ’10 finished third in that race, but wasn’t available to collect her ribbon because she had to get out to the tennis courts, where she took two straight sets as the team’s #1 ranked player.  Riford finished seventh and both she and Lena Finucane both made the all-state first team.  James Finucane also earned all-state first team honors with his third place finish, while Spencer’s eighth place finish garnered her all-state second team honors.