The Livingston High School girls’ cross country team traveled to Branch Brook Park in Newark, for their first Super Essex Conference (SEC) competition of the season on Tuesday, September 17. There will be four straight weeks of inter-conference meets held at the park, and LHS will compete in the American Division. The first week of SEC action saw LHS competing against Bloomfield, Newark Academy, and Millburn, while also scoring against eight other conference teams.
After a strong pre-season and opener at the Lancer Invitational, the coaches were eager to see how things would unfold. The Lancers lined up seven against theirAmerican division foes in the varsity contest. Captain Sophia Paparsenos came into view with a large lead over the second place runner from Millburn. Paparsenos clocked a time of 20:19.5 for the win by almost one minute. Coming in third place overall was Sophie Schumacher with a solid clocking of 21:44. Not too far behind was Sarah Nidhan in fifth place with a time of 22:23. The LHS girls finished in first, third, and fifth place.
The scoring started to tighten up, as six of the next seven spots were athletes from Bloomfield, Newark Academy, and Millburn. Next for the Lancers was Kiera D’Souza (24:24; 13th), followed closely byAnne Ferrans (24:51; 15th), andAvery Lerman (24:55; 16th).
When the scores were tallied, the girls won a close match against Millburn, 26-29. Combined with wins against Bloomfield (19-39) and Newark Academy (20-38), the squad opened the 2024 campaign 3-0 in the American Division. In the other cross-division match-ups, the Lancers beat all opponents, taking those meets 8-0 giving them an SEC overall record of 11-0 on the day.
The team ran a much faster five girl average than their opening meet last year, and saw some promising performances from new and returning runners.
The two-mile novice race was also held this past week, where freshmen Shubhada Boyer and Carolina Romero Vasquez led seven Lancers to finish in the top 23 of the 80 finishers. Boyer came in 11th place, running a 16:12, while Romero Vasquez placed 12th and ran a 16:15.
Other strong finishes in the twomile race included Lexis Chen (16:18; 14th), Allison Zhou (17:00; 17th),Yolanda Cheung (17:02; 18th), Kacey Law (17:32; 22nd), and Ava Gelfenshteyn (17:38; 23rd). Also competing for the Lancers was Michaela Liu (19:58) Kayla Greenfeld (20:11), Elyana Boutros (20:19), Ioanna Gliati (20:25), Sofia Iskold (21:16), Richelle Lederman (22:36), Emilie Lapointe (23:05), and Samridhi Sharma (23:31).
The girls will next compete at Garrett Mountain in Woodland Park. This will be followed by the second week of the SEC, when the Lancers will go up against West Orange, Columbia, and Montclair.
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