STAC CROSS COUNTRY: WITH BIG NUMBERS AND SEVERAL RETURNING RUNNERS, OWEGO LOOKS SOLID (2025-08-29)

TIM TAYLOR
Tioga County Sports Report
OWEGO — The Owego cross country teams are producing good numbers again this season and with several veteran runners returning, the River Hawks could challenge for Section IV championships.

“We should have about 36 kids, somewhere around 21 boys and 15 girls, which is nice for us,” coach John Heath said.

Thirty runners attended a camp earlier this week, a staple in Owego’s preseason prep.

“This is the 19th year we've started the season with a cross country camp,” Heath said. “For the first few years, we were bouncing around trying to find the perfect place and we ended up finding a camp up in the Adirondacks, up past Old Forge. We were there for about 10 years, and management changed and we had to switch two years ago. So, for the last two years, we've been at Racquet Lake. It's a beautiful place. It's kind of a great reset for the kids as they get ready to go back to school. It really bonds the team together. It's a great place to train in a different environment with different routes.

“This year, the Union-Endicott cross country team joined us and it was really nice because the kids get to train with other kids in their groups, and it's super motivational for them. We had a great time.”

The River Hawks took a couple of hits among last season’s scoring runners, but have the majority of their top competitors back.

The girls bring back the top four runners from the defending Section IV Class B champions.

“We lost our number five and six girls from last year's team and so we bring back four senior girls with a lot of experience and great leadership qualities,” Heath said. The rest of the team is made up of pretty much brand new runners, a lot of 9th-grade girls. We have an 8th-grader and a 10th-grader.

“It's going to be a great season for those younger girls to kind of get that torch pass from the older girls, and learn from them and see their work ethic involved and benefit from their leadership. It'll be a nice bridge, having the senior girls to kind of pass that on to the next group that'll be carrying on.”

The boys team returns some key runners from the 2024 sectional runner-up squad.

“We bring back probably three out of our top five and then so, on our boys' side, the experience from our scoring members is OK,” said Heath. “Then there's a number of boys, I'd call it in the middle, that have a little bit of experience. This could be a year where those boys have an opportunity to step up and, it's not uncommon to see, in a boys' sophomore or junior year, them to make a big jump, and we're looking forward to seeing how that goes throughout the season.”

Owego opens the season Sept, 6 at the Flash Forbes Invitational at Oneonta.

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IN PHOTO 1: Coach John Heath could field two competitive teams again. … IN TOP PHOTO: The River Hawks’ boys hope to challenge for a Section IV title. … PHOTOS BY TIM TAYLOR.

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