What's New
Westhill-Ludden Harrier - Wed., October 29, 2010 - No. 6
Visit www.jecrosscountry.com to see photos, race results, and former J-E teams.
September 29, 2010 Edition - No. 6
The Eagle Harrier
Squeaker!!
Win Streak Extends to 11
Jordan, N.Y. - Who ever said that life was fair? Even in high school interscholastic sports, the playing field is often far from level. Yesterday was no exception for the J-E Eagles as they had to compete against league rivals Westhill and Bishop Ludden High Schools. This would be normal in most years, but in this cross country season, Westhill and Ludden have joined forces to form one team. The school enrollment for the combined Westhill-Ludden alliance is 889 students to J-E's 380. J-E remains a class ‘C' entity and Westhill-Ludden moves into the class ‘A' ranks. Now what were the Liberty Division athletic directors thinking to keep this mega-school vying for league honors against schools one-half their size? No one knows for sure.
What is known is that J-E won by the narrow margin of 26 to 29. This ups J-E's two-year win streak to 11 straight Liberty Division victories. J-E has defeated both Ludden and Westhill three straight times. Senior Greg Bader and junior Steve Slonosky took first and second in the race, just a stride in front of Westhill-Ludden runner Casey Bunce. Bunce was in fourth place until the last 100 meters where he unleashed a furious sprint, overtaking freshman Jack Gugel and almost catapulting himself into the victory circle. Bader said: "It's my fault, we weren't working very hard and thought we had the race won", "we never should have been in this position". Gugel thought he had lost the race by being overtaken. Bader and Slonosky ran identical times of 14.34 over J-E's new course. Gugel and Bunce ran identical 14.35's. Seniors Carlin Coomey and Scott Sullivan rounded out J-E's scoring by placing 9th and 10th respectively (15.17 and 15.30). This was the highest ever place of finish for Coomey. "I tried to run harder today than most days" said Coomey, "I wanted to run with Jack" (Gugel). Senior Tom Poppe sat out the race today due to illness.
Derrick Cheney and Rob Patterson rounded out J-E's top 7 in 11th and 12th places (15.39 and 15.40). Both Cheney and Patterson sprinted hard to the finish in an attempt to defeat each other.
J-E's Junior Varsity team didn't fare as well as the varsity losing a 22 - 36 decision to Westhill's JV squad. For the JV squad, Ben Cheney finished 13th (15.54), Dylan Whittico (above photo) was 19th (16.25), Jared Bard was 23rd (15.39), Nick Parkolap was 25th (17.28), and Shawn Phillips was 26th (17.34) to round out the scoring. Also competing for the Eagles were Mike McDonald (27th/17.35), Nick Muehlberger (28th/17.48), Nick Byrnes (29th/17.58), Dean Comstock (30th/18.01), Jake Patterson (33rd/18.08), Jay Paquette (34th/18.24), and Eian Prinsen (35th/19.20).

