Niskayuna’s cross country teams put on a show for their Schenectady County fans at last Saturday’s Grout Run at Schenectady’s Central Park.
Chelsea Trant won the girls Division I race to lead Niskayuna to a second-place finish in the team standings, while the Niskayuna boys placed a strong fourth against a tough Division II field.
Trant seized control of the 2.75-mile race early on and never looked back in winning the indi-vidual title with a time of 16:14.15. Ekeka Kuhn of Glens Falls was Trant’s closest competitor, and Kuhn finished more than 15 seconds later.
I tried to get out fast in the first mile, and I started losing (the other runners) in the first half mile, said Trant.
`She had a fantastic start,` said Niskayuna girls coach John Sharkey. `She took control of the race from the opening gun, which was unusual for her.`
The remainder of Niskayuna’s top five runners placed in the top 40, but only two ` Nima Balan (11th place, 17:25.85) and Kelsey Ryan (19th, 18:10.18) ` joined Trant in the top 20. That left the Silver Warriors in second place with 84 points, well behind Division I team champion Guilderland.
`We were hoping for a little better show today, but these things happen,` said Sharkey.
Scotia-Glenville didn’t have enough runners to qualify as a team for the Division II girls race, but it did have a top-10 finisher in Amanda Schermerhorn (ninth place, 16:35.38).
The Niskayuna, Scotia-Glenville and Schalmont boys teams all competed in Division II. Niskayuna was fourth with 122 points, while Scotia-Glenville placed ninth with 219 points and Schalmont finished 13th with 346 points. Niskayuna’s Marshall Pagano was the top local runner with a fourth-place finish in a time of 14:02.26.“