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caption: Menounos
3rd-place finish for Menounos
at ECC championship
The goal was in sight but turned out to be just a little out of reach.
Junior Christian Menounos had hoped to bring home to Woodstock Academy a boys’ cross-country ECC individual championship on Thursday. He had to settle for a third-place finish.
“I was leading for the first two miles but I just blew up a little in the last mile. It just wasn’t my day but it was a solid effort,” Menounos said.
Menounos finished in 16 minutes, 44 seconds, 15 seconds back of East Lyme junior Sean McCauley. Griswold freshman Tycen Labelle placed second.
Woodstock junior Colton Sallum was seventh and senior Charlie Caggiano placed 21st.
The efforts meant the Centaurs as a team finished in third among ECC Div. I teams and fifth overall.
For Menounos, it could mean a re-thinking of his race strategy.
“I was in a situation where (McCauley and Labelle) were just riding my shoulder and making me kind of do all the work. I had to dictate the pace. I don’t really like that situation. I need to learn how to get over that,” Menounos said.
Coach Josh Welch said it’s something Menounos will have to work on.
“He’s been putting himself in that position (dictating the pace) a lot and it may not be the best strategy for him to do that. He tends to pull it out fast and tries to take it out of (his opponents) in the first mile and it just doesn’t work well. They have similar strengths to him,” Welch said.
What the Centaurs coach was hoping to see at the ECC Championship was Menounos hang back just a bit and then push his competitors in the second mile.
“Going into the (Class MM championship on Saturday), he should go out and follow somebody for once. He tried to get out quick (Thursday) because of the U-turn start that’s unique to say the least,” Welch said.
The league was forced to re-configure the course a bit due to some additions on the Norwich Golf Course. The facility planted trees on the hill in which the runners ran down shortly after the start.
The start had to be moved below that hill with teams on the right side starting positions having a much straighter line to a corner the runners all had to pinch in to.
Those teams on the left, where Woodstock was placed, were actually up a bit on the hill and had to quickly get down to the bottom to avoid being caught up in a pack trying to make the corner.
“I didn’t really like the start because it was tilted. I like the start from before with the downhill at the beginning. Since I was on the tilt, I had to sprint faster to get to the front. Before we had a downhill to get momentum into the uphill. We didn’t have that this time,” Menounos said.
Menounos was in the lead early but McCauley caught him around the two-mile mark and passed him and Labelle got past in the last half-mile of the race.
“Sometimes, It’s just not the right day,” Welch said. “He has put a ton of work into that moment. Fortunately, he gets another (ECC championship) next year. It’s hard to have it not all be there but he had a solid race.”
Another runner who had a solid race for Welch was Sallum who finished just 29 seconds behind his teammate.
“I felt really good about that,” Sallum said. “It was a really tough course and came up on me quickly. The whole race seemed like it was done in like five minutes.”
Welch thought Sallum had a great performance.
“You could see him fighting to stay up there and that gap between him and Christian has come down quite a bit,” the Woodstock Academy coach said.
The Centaurs finished fifth overall as a team with 102 points behind East Lyme (27); Ledyard (86); Fitch (88) and Norwich Free Academy (91).
“It’s alright,” Welch said with a shrug of the shoulder. “We were missing our fifth runner and that was unfortunate because we would have been close to second. Everybody out there did their absolute best and we had runners getting their personal bests on what is the hardest course of the season.”
The meet did count toward regular season standings.
Due to displacement, the Centaurs did finish ahead of NFA among Division I teams and finished 2-4 for the regular season in the division, tied with NFA and Fitch behind 6-0 East Lyme.
The league is now in the rearview mirror with the Class MM state championship at Wickham Park now looming on Saturday in Manchester.
“(This result) gives me motivation for next week. I want to put a better effort in. I’m just going to use this as motivation and try to bounce back,” Menounos said.
The Wickham course is substantially easier than the Norwich Golf Course.
“I would like to see Christian drop down to the low 16’s and at Wickham Park, I think he can absolutely be in that neighborhood. I want to see Colton get up there, too, and would like to send the two to the State Open. I think Colton has a really good shot if he works his tail off between now and then. I hope our two seniors (Caggiano and Joel Koleszar) end on a really high note,” Welch said. “I would like them to have a good taste in their mouths as they move on.”
Girls’ Cross-Country
Senior Julia Coyle was beaming as she crossed the finish line at the ECC girls’ cross-country championship meet. Coyle strode across in 21 minutes, 22 seconds, good enough for a fifth-place finish.
“It’s actually great,” Coyle said of her finish. “These were like the perfect conditions to run (Thursday). There was a great energy here, everybody was so excited to run; nervous because this course is known to be tough but we just went out and did our thing.”
The fifth-place finish, Coyle admitted, was a little unexpected.
But when she got to the course, she felt really good.
“I had a vision that I was going to get, at least, top 10,” Coyle said. “I knew going in that was what I wanted. I stayed true to myself and that’s most important when you are running.”
Woodstock coach Joe Banas saw the same thing. “Her head was into this. I saw it early on as she was warming up. I asked her if she was ready and she said ‘This is it. It’s going to happen (Thursday)’ and she followed through,” Banas said.
A big key for Coyle and the rest of the team was the hill work that the team had done in preparation for the ECC and State championship meets.
“I have to talk to the coaches about that, it’s one of the main things I have to say ‘Thank you’ for. We work hill repeats at Fiberoptics on the weekends and without that, these hills would have been much tougher. I felt my training from that, definitely, was utilized here,” Coyle said.
Banas said he and Welch tried to simulate certain sections of the Norwich Golf Course and Wickham Park courses by working the hill located near the Pomfret business.
“If you don’t, when you get here, if you’re not prepared, you’re not going to perform. (The Norwich Golf Course) is a roller coaster of a course. This isn’t Harkness (in New London) which is pancake city,” Banas said.
What may make it even better for Coyle is that she picked a good day to have one of her better outings.
Banas was watching alongside Ned Bishop, a Connecticut College cross-country coach and Banas knows Coyle is interested in Conn College.
“I said nothing but nice things about her,” Banas said with a smile. “To have her do this in front of possibly her coach next year was great.”
And it could say good things for the Class MM state championship meet at Wickham Park in Manchester on Saturday.
“I told her if she had this kind of effort at the Class meet, I think she could punch her ticket to the State Open (on Nov. 3 also at Wickham),” Banas said.
Sophomore Olivia Tracy placed 21st for the Centaurs.
“That’s pretty good,” Tracy said. “I just have to keep showing up and keep training. Keep putting in the work.”
Woodstock was again missing its third runner due to illness which helped to knock them back to ninth overall as a team and third in Div. I. The meet does count to the regular season standings and the Centaurs third-place finish left them with a 2-4 Div. I record.
Marc Allard
Director of Sports Information
The Woodstock Academy
Captions inside: Senior Julia Coyle (center) and sophomore Olivia Tracy try to get to the front of the pack at the beginning of the ECC girls’ cross-country championship meet.
Junior Colton Sallum successfully navigates the last big hill of the day at the ECC championship meet. He finished seventh.
Photos by Marc Allard.