Archive: Sports

Lansing took top honors in the girls' cross-country races at the end-of-season IAC Championship Invitational at Marathon on Saturday, October 28.

In the varsity girls' race, Lansing senior Mikaela Garcia cruised to victory taking first place by 20 seconds with a time of 21:00.7. Lansing freshman Emmaline Jackson followed close behind at 3rd place (21:21.5), and Allison Keefe (22:51), Eden Jackson (22:53), and Leigh Miller (23:06) finished 18th/19th/23rd respectively out of the field of 79 racers to get the Lady Bobcats a tie for first place with Newark Valley, with 50 points for each team..

In the case of a numeric tie, the winning team is determined by the higher of the two teams' 6th place finishers. In this case, Lansing's Teresa Garcia finished in 28th place overall (23:17.7), seven spots ahead of the next closest Newark Valley finisher, to get Lansing the team win in girls varsity.

"Our girls varsity team knew that they had to get out faster and that every place mattered. This couldn't have been more true as Teresa was the determinant for the win," said Lansing XC coach Becca Lovenheim. "Once Mikaela took the lead, she held it through the rest of the race, and Emmy ran to a personal record and her best race yet, determined to keep up with Mikaela. This was a great race for our girls and they have a clear focus for the Section IV championships."

Lansing also posted a first-place finish in the modified girls' race of 48 contestants, with Kinsley Jacobs winning the race by nearly 35 seconds over the next fastest runner.

"Kinsley ran completely in control and has tremendous potential for the future," said Coach Lovenheim.

On the boys' side, Sam Bell finished 3rd out of 70 runners in the modified race, with Caden Michalec, Parker Vooris, Seth Riley, and Thomas Stallone finishing 13th/16th/20th/22nd respectively. Altogether, Lansing's modified boys' XC team finished second to Waverly at the meet, beating 11 other schools that competed in the race.

"Our mod boys have worked hard to become a cohesive and strong team," said Coach Lovenheim. "We saw a fantastic last performance from that group led by Sam Bell. Even with several of those boys juggling the beginning of their basketball season, they refocused for their last race and we're already excited for what next fall holds for them."

The varsity boys Bobcats fought hard in their race despite missing two of their regular top-five runners. Even so, Lansing senior Zoltan Csaki notched a top 20 finish out of the field of nearly 100 runners (18th place; 19:24), and follow senior Liam Hulsebosch followed closely behind at 24th place (19:49). Teddy Brenner finished 38th overall at 21:02, and David Pollack finished 70th at 24:45.

"Our varsity boys were missing two of our top scorers, which hampered our team strategy," Coach Lovenheim said. "However, we saw the boys work through the field to find each other and practice their racing strategy in anticipation of sectionals."

The Lansing modified XC teams are now finished with their seasons, but Lansing varsity XC continues on in the post-season with the sectional meet.

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