NYSPHSAA CROSS COUNTRY: OWEGO REGISTERS SEVERAL PRs, STRONG PERFORMANCES AT STATE MEET (November 15, 2025)

By TIM TAYLOR
Tioga County Sports Report
QUEENSBURY — Owego put in a strong showing at the NYSPHSAA Cross Country Championships here Saturday, establishing several personal records in the process.

In her fifth appearance at the state meet, senior Jaelyn Chrysler led a nice grouping to the finish line, placing 64th in the girls Class B race with a time of 20:07.1. Classmate Abigail McHugh finished 75th in 20:22.7, followed by 8th-grader Sarah Heath, who clocked 20:25.2. The River Hawks other senior, Stella Palladino was 89th at 20:44.6.

“We were so proud of the girls today,” coach John Heath said. “We've never had four girls under 21 minutes in a race before and all four of our runners today were under 21. Sarah and Stella had over 30-second personal bests. Abby had a personal best and Jaelyn was knocking on the door to break 20 minutes in this race, so we were super proud of how they all ran today.”

“It was really, really fun,” said McHugh. “Pretty much all my teammates were all around me and it was just amazing. We all did so good.”

As usual, the hills presented a challenge to many of the competitors.

“Oh, they come at pretty mean points of the course, you know, like the one and two miles, so those kind of sucked, but it's okay. We got through them,” McHugh said.

The first hill was actually pretty manageable,” said Javan Belokur, who competed in the boys race. “I didn't really notice it. That second hill, though, it was all mushy and torn up, and that was a little difficult.”

Section IV runners started in a tree-shaded area at one end of the starting line. That left the ground hard for the girls races, due to an overnight frost, but it didn’t pIay a role in the outcome of the race,

“I wouldn't say it was too bad,” McHugh said. “The tangent was pretty good, so I think we were fine. It didn't affect us too much.”

The overnight frost had thawed by the time the boys race started at 12:30 p.m., not to mention four girls races had been run on the course by then.

“The course was a little slick, I thought,” Belokur said. “That could have been my spikes, but definitely a little muddy and soft in some spots where you had to watch your footing.

In the Class B boys race, Belokur, a senior, recorded a time of 17:29.5, good for 85th place in the field of 126. Senior Magavin Allen was 106th with a time of 18:03 and junior Levi Saunders was 11th in 18:13.

“The boys had a good race today. They were packed well together,” coach Heath said. “Levi had a big personal best on the season. McGavin and Javan ran really strong. They fought hard, passed a lot of guys at the end and represented themselves and our program really well up here today.”

“I'm happy with my performance overall,” Belokur said. “I mean the goal was to get here so I was already where I wanted to be. The start of the race sort of threw me for a loop so just trying to regain my senses was a little difficult but I thought it was overall good.

“We started so far off to the left that the main pack, you sort of had to cut over and it was just open and a jumbled mess. It was chaotic.”

One of several seniors on the Owego roster, McHugh is going to miss cross country.

“Oh my gosh, it was just amazing,” she said. “I have memories that are going to last forever and friends that I'll have forever, and I'm going to miss it so much. “

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IN PHOTO 1: Javan Belokur. IN TOP PHOTO: (L-R) Stella Palladino, Sarah Heath, Abigail McHugh, Jaelyn Chrysler. … PHOTOS BY TIM TAYLOR.

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