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caption, page 8:
Sophomore Christian Menounos, right, is all alone out front as he finished first in a boys’ cross-country meet. Senior Lauren Brule, top left, crosses the finish line in first place against NFA. Freshman Olivia Tracy, top right, works her way across the finish line. Photos by Brad Favreau.
When the Woodstock Academy girls’ cross-country team traveled to Groton to run the Fitch Falcons Oct. 14 in the final regular season meet for both schools, the two teams and Windham competed on a 5K course.
In high school cross-country, that’s the norm.
But the Haley Farm State Park course was an exception and it was an exception that didn’t sit well with senior Lauren Brule.
The boys’ teams on the Groton course had always run the normal 3.1 miles.
The girls were limited to a 2.6 mile-course.
With the encouragement of coach Joe Banas, she composed a letter to the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference saying she was concerned about a possible Title IX violation taking place in the meets at Haley Farm because of the difference in length.
“I was just concerned about this since every year we run there and it is not fair for the boys to run the full race but not allow the girls to run the same. I will understand if there is some conflict that makes the girls run the 2.6 miles if it is made clear of a valid reasoning of why that is,” Brule wrote in her letter to the CIAC.
Banas said: “There are some courses in the Eastern Connecticut Conference that are not 5K but it’s for both the boys and the girls. But in this case, the boys’ course is a 5K which means the girls’ course has to be a 5K.”
The CIAC handbook contains a discrepancy of its own as it states in the cross-country state championship rules that all races are to be 5K in length. However, under its girls’ cross-country rules section, it does give schools the ability to have a course that can range in length from 4K to 5K.
The boys’ rules do not have that option.
The CIAC did not respond to Brule directly but did reach out to Woodstock Academy acting athletic director Brad Favreau and told him that the discrepancy was a league matter.
Associate head of school Holly Singleton reached out to the ECC about the discrepancy.
It turns out that Fitch athletic director Marc Romano was not even aware of the situation and quickly decided to make it necessary for the boys and girls cross-country meets at Fitch to be an equal 5K in length.
The ECC also voted in its meeting on Tuesday to change its cross-country rules, which mirrored the CIAC handbook rules, to make all boys and girls’ league meets 5K in length.
“I am very proud of a lot of parts of what happened,” Singleton said. “I’m proud that one of our athletes was able to discern a situation that was an obvious Title IX violation and was able to write this letter to the CIAC that was articulate, non-inflammatory and really just direct, to the point and very professional. I’m really happy that she had the confidence to advocate for herself and other female athletes.”
Brule was sporting a big smile Oct. 13 prior to the meet when she learned the course was going to be changed to the 5K length.
Brule went out and finished first in the race in 23 minutes, 5 seconds.
Cross-Country roundup
Finish regular season with 3 wins
Girls’ cross-country coach Joe Banas remembered a time about a dozen years ago when he was at the Pomfret Recreation Complex umpiring a senior men’s wooden bat baseball league game.
“I don’t know what it was but I remember thinking, ‘This would be a nice place to run,’ but I just put it on the backburner,” Banas said.
But with the Woodstock Academy boys’ and girls’ cross-country teams in need of a home course, something they didn’t have a year ago, Banas brought up the idea to boys’ cross-country coach Peter Lusa.
The Centaurs hosted their first-ever meet on the course last week.
“It went well,” Lusa said. “We knew that it had some sticky corners and some tight turns which we would like to fix over time but because we had only nine runners and NFA had only 18, it worked. It would be a trickier course with bigger teams on it.”
The Centaurs girls certainly seemed to like it. They downed Norwich Free Academy, 18-43.
Woodstock then finished off the regular season with a 7-1 overall record and 2-1 mark in Div. I of the ECC with a pair of wins over Fitch, 15-45, and Windham, 15-50, at Haley Farm in Groton Oct. 14.
Centaurs senior Lauren Brule came across the finish line first against NFA in 21 minutes, 46 seconds.
Because it was the first official meet on the Pomfret course, Brule also established the course record.
“We’ve run on it in practice and I had mixed feelings about it. I think it’s definitely one of the more difficult courses that I’ve run because there are a lot of hills and very few flat areas but it’s nice for parents to be able to see you as you run,” Brule said.
About a mile into the race, Banas knew things were going his team’s way as Brule surged ahead of NFA’s Eliana Duclos.
Shortly thereafter, Julia Coyle did the same and finished second in 22:02 before Duclos crossed the line.
Olivia Tracy, Kira Greene and Leila Khairetdinova finished fourth, fifth and sixth for the Centaurs.
Brule was honored following the meet alongside senior teammates Tessa Brown, Sydney Lord, Anna Mason and Elizabeth Morgis which comprises the majority of the team.
Brule picked up another first-place finish against the Falcons. She led an entire pack of Centaurs across the finish line in 23 minutes, 5 seconds.
Kira Greene finished seven-tenths of a second behind her teammate. Coyle, Tracy, Brown and Lord comprised the remainder of the top six finishers in Groton.
Now that the regular season is over, the entire ECC will get together for the championship meet on the Norwich Golf Course next Thursday.
Brule finished 10th in the league meet last season. Coyle and Lord finished 14th and 15th last season.
Boys’ Cross Country
The boys’ cross-country team saw its regular season come to an end with a pair of meets.
The Centaurs finished the season Oct. 14 with a pair of victories, 22-35 over Fitch and 17-46 over Windham.
Woodstock finished the regular season with a 5-3 overall record and 1-2 in Div. I of the ECC.
That record is not final, however, as the league championship meet also figures into the regular season standings.
Sophomore Christian Menounos was again at the front of the pack as he crossed the finish line in 17:50 which was 25 seconds better than Kaiden Chandler of Fitch.
Vince Bastura (18:24) finished in third with Colton Sallum (19:05) in fifth. Charles Caggiano and Joel Koleszar placed seventh and eighth for the Centaurs.
The Centaurs opened the week with their only home meet of the season.
Woodstock and NFA battled to a 28-all tie.
There is a tiebreaker and that went to the Wildcats who put in their sixth runner before the Centaurs did.
Menounos established the record on the new course as he put together a 16 minute, 51 second performance to take first overall.
Bastura celebrated Senior Day with a second-place finish in 17:32.
Sallum finished third for Woodstock and fifth overall, Caggiano placed ninth and Koleszar 11th.
With the regular season over with, it’s off to the ECC championship meet at the Norwich Golf Course for the boys’ squad. E. Lyme and Griswold are the teams to beat.
Lusa is hopeful that Menounos and Bastura could finish inside the top 10 in the championship race.
Menounos, in his first ECC championship meet last year, finished 20th while Bastura was 14th overall.
Marc Allard
Director of Sports Information
The Woodstock Academy
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