Rancan led historic South run
By Justin Feil, Assistant Sports Editor
Christina Rancan enjoyed a pretty good season as a freshman last year, and so did her West Windsor-Plainsboro High South girls cross country team.
Rancan was even better in her sophomore year, and the result was an historic season for the Pirates.
”We were very excited at the end of last year,” Rancan said. “We knew we’d have the majority of girls returning. I don’t think it was ahead of schedule because we didn’t really set a schedule for ourselves. We went in open-minded and didn’t want to put a cap on how well we could do and limit ourselves.”
Rancan was in the top five all last year for the Pirates. This year, she stayed in the top two, going back and forth with Deirdre Casey. Rancan closed her year as the top finisher for the Pirates in four of their final five races.
”She’s such a fierce competitor, it’s really in the races where you see it,” said Pirate girls coach Josh Siegel. “Deirdre and Edyln (Gulama) and Christina work well together in workouts. Once she’s out on the course, she has a whole new mindset. That’s when she obviously excels.”
Rancan’s competitiveness came out over the championship portion of the season. It began with a third-place finish in the Mercer County Championships with an 18:54 clocking at Washington Crossing Park as the Pirates returned to the top of the county as a team. Two weeks later, Casey finished nine seconds ahead of her, but Rancan was third overall again as the Pirates won the Central Jersey Group IV championship at Thompson Park. At Holmdel Park the following week, Rancan was third overall for a third straight race when she ran 19:02 to help the Pirates win their first Group IV state title in a school course average record 19:37. She was even quicker the next week, 18:56, to help the Pirates finish a program-best fourth at the Meet of Champions. Rancan was also the top finisher, 14th overall, at the Northeast Cross Regional Championships at Bowdoin Park in Wappingers Falls, N.Y.
”She had a very strong freshman year,” Siegel said. “I was very impressed with her abilities being so young. Returning this year, we knew that she was going to be towards the top of our pack. She certainly went beyond our expectations. She’s a tremendous young lady and a fantastic athlete. We’re really lucky to have her.”
Christina Rancan is the Princeton Packet Girls Cross Country Athlete of the Year.
”I’m pretty proud of myself because I got third at counties, third at sectionals, and third at groups,” Rancan said. “That was being consistent and being able to go out there and stay with the front pack.
”The competition is getting tougher, and you’d think you’d be farther and farther back. I was proud I was able to latch onto the front group and hang on no matter how good the competition was.”
Staying in the front of the pack at dual meets and even in packs at championship meets was something new to Rancan. It took a new mindset to get to that level from how she thought as a freshman.
”I didn’t want to go out and start really fast,” Rancan recalled. “I didn’t know how long I’d be able to maintain that pace. As a freshman, I just wanted to get my footing and start working on my PRs. I didn’t picture myself up there as much as I do now.
”It wasn’t an overnight thing. Last race freshman year and first race sophomore year, I was around same time as last year. I was still improving.”
It didn’t take too long for Rancan to reset her mindset and her expectations. She saw and believed that she belonged up front. She saw signs that she had improved significantly enough in some summer workouts, and when it came to the fall races, she discovered that her training had paid dividends.
”It wasn’t completely obvious to me,” Rancan said. “The first race I started to view myself differently was Cherokee Challenge. It wasn’t a significant change, but it was the first time I had gotten top five in a large race. From there, I didn’t want it to be like a one-hit wonder. I more or less held myself to a higher standard.
”Shore Coaches is another big moment when I realized how well I was doing and hopefully how well I could do.”
In workouts, she had her teammates there to push her. It helped feed her competitive side and raised her level. It also helped her see where she should be relative to the rest of the Pirates team during races — and by the end that meant out front.
”It was amazing,” Rancan said of the team’s effect on her. “It’s the best thing a runner could ask for, is to have great teammates and family there to push you. We have workouts and you perform the way that you practice. As I was being pushed by the girls on the team at practice, that carried over to races.”
In the races, Rancan relied on her improved fitness to put her in position to compete at the top, and her competitiveness to stay there even as the fields of talent improved.
”She’s such a fierce competitor,” Siegel said. “She really thrives at high levels of competition. She is not afraid to work hard. She’s very receptive to anything that Kurt (Wayton, the boys head coach) or I have to say. She just responds well to the training and the pressures that cross country brings.”
Rancan felt more comfortable coming into her second season of cross country. She knew her teammates better, the courses and the expectations. She wasn’t trying to figure everything out, she was just focusing on her training.
”The workouts since last year have definitely gotten faster and longer and more intense,” Rancan said. “I think that’s a great thing because we all want to improve. We don’t want to do the same workouts so we stay the same year in and year out. The workouts have changed and we’ve kept improving.”
Rancan is hoping to see her cross country success carry over to the track and field season. Last year, she focused on shorter distances like the 800 meters and even ran the 400 hurdles, which she would like to continue. But she’s shown in cross country a prowess for longer distances as well.
”She’s very multi-talented,” Siegel said. “In track last year, she was pulled in a lot of different directions. She did the 800 and even the hurdles, but I do think she’s more of the longer distance runner. I think that’s what she excels at. Maybe we’ll diversify her a little more, not have her doing just the shorter stuff, but a little longer.”
Track helped push her into a good summer of training that carried over into cross country. She is hoping that the same will happen and she and the Pirates can come back that much stronger next fall.
”Next year’s cross country, the bar has been set higher, which is a great thing,” she said. “It’s there as motivation and really pushing us. I think we’re capable of doing better next year. There are things we could have done better this year, which is making me really excited for what we could possibly do next year.”
The Pirates don’t expect her training to change that much, but now there is a new sense of just how good she and the girls cross country team can be. Rancan wasn’t quite sure where her second year of cross country would put her, but the results are encouraging for her junior year.
”Certainly it builds her confidence,” Siegel said. “She has a better understanding of her abilities. Thus she can better utilize them the next two years, and the next two seasons (of track and field). She has the ability to push herself and realize she always has a little more left in the tank and has the ability to do a little more.”
Rancan is happy with how much she improved as a sophomore, but she’s not satisfied with one season of success. She is looking for more.
”I got more of an understanding of my own abilities and how much they can improve and what I’m capable of,” Rancan said. “I don’t want to have that realization sophomore year and not act on it junior year.”