By Justin Feil, The Packet Group
A season of firsts continued with Ashley Smolinka becoming the first Hillsborough High School runner to qualify for the Nike Cross Country Nationals.
”It’s so exciting,” said Smolinka, a senior with the Raider girls team. “I’ve been thinking about that since the summer. People I talk to say it’s so much fun. I really want to go.”
Smolinka is the lone Hillsborough harrier to qualify out of the Northeast Regionals. She did so with a second-place finish at Bowdoin Park in Wappinger Falls, N.Y., on Saturday. Smolinka’s 18:57.6 clocking trailed only Reid Watson of Glastonbury (Conn.), who ran 18:52.1, but easily earned her first trip to Portland, Ore., site of Saturday’s nationals.
”She just had a little surge left,” Smolinka said. “I wasn’t too concerned. Second isn’t bad. I’m still going to nationals. I’m still happy with it.”
The race and her time were a big improvement over the week before at the Meet of Champions. Though Smolinka had been thrilled to share in the Raiders first state title, her own 15th-place finish wasn’t her best race of the year. The regionals give her hope that she is still peaking.
”This was a lot better,” she said of the regionals. “I think it’s because we didn’t race as much as last year. It took me a few more races to get into shape.”
While Smolinka’s season extends for one race, the rest of the Raiders shift their focus to the track after the best cross country season in program history ended one spot shy of a team trip to nationals.
”We were a little disappointed, but we were really happy with our race,” Smolinka said. “We’ve come so far. After last week, this was just a fun meet for us.”
The Raiders ran to third at the regionals, even though they were without Maureen Lynch, one of their top five runners, who was out with flu-like symptoms. Julianna Miller was 16th in 19:35.4, Kelly Janokowicz was 33rd in 20:00.6, senior Nicole Rittman was 61st in 20:32.3, Ally Cady was 90th in 21:11.8 and Stephanie Nunes was 92nd in 21:13.8. Hillsborough discovered on Sunday that it would not receive one of the four at-large bids from across the country.
”It would have been fun if we made it,” said Hillsborough head coach Rich Refi. “It was a fun ride.”
Smolinka made sure that it would continue for her. She missed the regional meet last year due to a stress fracture that was diagnosed two days before it. Smolinka didn’t show any inexperience in her first trip to the regional meet. She hadn’t even seen the course until a walk-through of it early Saturday.
”I just thought, it’s another big race,” Smolinka said. “I tried to make it a better race and not focus on the fact that last week wasn’t so good.
”I guess I’m used to people taking it out fast, and there being a lot of girls in the race. We were all pumped. We were trying to make up for Maureen not being there.”
Smolinka did more than her share. She raced to the lead from the outset and kept it until the final half-mile over a difficult course.
”I had no idea how I was going to run,” Smolinka said. “I didn’t know most of the people in the race. I was just going to run. I felt a lot better than last week so I took the lead.
”I guess I was trying to push the pace a bit,” she said. “I like hills. The first mile was all uphill.”
Now she will have a chance to take on another challenging course, and an even more challenging field of runners. She will be making history just by running it, regardless of her finish. Ashley Smolinka is looking forward to representing Hillsborough High as the first runner to compete at the Nike Nationals on Saturday.
”I’m just so excited to go out there,” she said. “I’ve seen videos from it. It looks so fun. There are so many good runners. My coach has never been out there and he’s been coaching forever. It would be nice for him to get to go too.”
