Tartans win fourth Prep B XC title
By: Bob Nuse
Tom Harrington grew up in Chapel Hill, N.C., admiring the way Dean Smith’s University of North Carolina basketball program was successful year after year.
As a high school coach, Harrington has always tried to follow the model of the legendary Smith.
"They didn’t just have a great team, they had a great program," said Harrington, the head coach of the Stuart Country Day School cross country team. "I’ve always tried to model my teams after the team at UNC. I don’t want us to just be a good team. I want us to have a good program. That means being competitive year after year."
Harrington has certainly done a great job of modeling the Stuart cross country team after the program he admired at UNC. On Wednesday afternoon, the Tartans used their depth to easily capture the state Prep B championship at Blair. It was the fourth Prep B title in the six years of existence for the program.
"We’ve won it four times and been second twice," Harrington said. "When the season starts and we get together for the first time in August, the goal is always the same. We want to win the big meet on the last Wednesday in October. We’re happy to win our dual meets, but that is not the focus of our team. The focus and goal is to win a state championship."
The Tartans did that on Wednesday by placing three runners in the top five and five in the top 14 to finish with 33 points. Pennington finished second in the meet with 62 points. Laura Brienza was the top finisher for Stuart, third overall. Emily Driscoll was fourth and Catherine Currie finished fifth. The rest of the top five saw Caroline Cancelosi finish ninth and Emily Cancelosi finish 14th.
In the other prep races on Wednesday, Hun School senior Morgan Seybert was second overall in the Prep A boys’ race, finishing 13 seconds behind Bryan Scotland of St. Benedict’s. As a team, Hun finished sixth with 126 points. Blair won the meet with 37 points. In the Prep B boys’ race, Jeff Moll of Princeton Day finished 11th overall and the Panthers were fifth as a team with 128 points. Oratory Prep won the meet with 27 points.
In the Prep A girls’ race, Hun finished ninth and PDS was 11th. Melissa Hedberg was the top Hun finisher in 39th place. Lillian Mitchell was the top PDS finisher in 43rd place.
As for Stuart, all of the top five finishers, as well as No. 6 runner Sasha Levitt, will be back next year. The only senior on the roster is Sofie Media, who was the No. 7 runner for the Tartans on Wednesday. With most of the team returning, Harrington has a chance for a fifth title next fall with a program that competes for a championship year after year.
"Our target will be to defend the title," said Harrington, whose team had an 8-2 dual meet record and also won the Patriot Conference championship meet this season. "But right now I just want the girls to enjoy this one. We ran a good race. We finished the same way we have all year. The only thing that changes up for us is that Laura and Emily go back and forth for first and second. But after that we’ve been steady."
Steady is a good way to describe the Stuart program. In six years the team has never been lower than second at the Prep B meet. And this year was the team’s second straight title.
"This team is different because it’s the first time that I didn’t have anyone who was with me when we started as a middle school program," Harrington said. "I never had a chance to coach these kids in the middle school. In the past we’ve had kids that were with me from the beginning.
"I told these girls this was a chance for them to make their own legacy. They have all come along so well."
The top three of Brienza, Driscoll and Currie has been solid all year. And they’ve also had an impact on the Stuart runners of the future.
"They’ve been working hard and the younger girls have been following their example," said Harrington, whose team will run in the Mercer County meet today at Veterans Park. "If the younger girls work as hard as they do and do what they did in the summer, we’ll be pretty good. They lead by example and push each other.
"They were talking to the middle school team the other day and letting them know that they have a chance to be part of something special. I thought it was great the way the older kids were telling the middle schoolers that they’re not just part of a team, but part of a family. It was nice to hear them talk like that."
Once those middle school runners get to the varsity they’ll not only be part of a family, but part of a program as well. A program that is able to compete for a championship year after year.