NYS CROSS COUNTRY: OWEGO SENDING 10 TO STATE CHAMPIONSHIPS (2024-11-15)

By TIM TAYLOR
Tioga County Sports Report
QUEENSBURY — The Owego girls cross country team, led by four-time qualifier and two-time Section IV individual champion Jaelyn Chrysler, will compete in the state championships for the second time in three years here Saturday.

The Class B champions will be joined by a trio of runners from the boys team, all of whom have been to states previously as well.

The meet is back at Queensbury for the first time since 2013 and Owego coach John Heath believes this is a good course for his runners to attempt to record personal bests.

“This Queensbury course is a great course,” he said. “It's a course they can run a PR on, so we try to get them to focus on maybe you can go up there and run your fastest time of the season. It might not be your best place of the season because obviously the competition is higher, but it's something to keep them motivated in a big race like that to maybe be able to go out and run their fastest time of the season.

The longtime coach has enjoyed working with his athletes and has had an enjoyable season as well.

“It's been a really fun group to work with this year,” said Heath. “We were fortunate coming into the season to know that we would have a chance to do something special at the sectional meet, but there's no guarantees. A lot can happen over the course of a season, but it was a group that showed up every day. They worked through some injuries. This year, we did a lot of training through races to try to be stronger at the end and it came together.”

Heath, previously a cross country coach at Sayre, started teaching at Owego and in his second year there the cross country coaching position became available. He’s been there ever since.

“There were only five boys and three girls on the team,” he said. “It was 20 years ago, so it's been great to be able to put enough time into it to build something up where we consistently have solid numbers year in, year out.”

Those years of experience has helped Heath realize he had some talented runners this season and he was confident they could be competitive.

“A good goal for our team this year was to see if we could win sectionals on the boys and the girls side,” he said. “We both had a chance. We weren't favorites by any means, and the girls pulled it off. The boys put up a heck of a race. We got three individuals qualified for states on the boys side this year.”

A LITTLE HISTORY
Since the state meet was last held at Queensbury in 2013, Owego has sent 36 boys and 29 girls to the event.

With the exception of 2020, when there was no meet due to COVID-19, the River Hawks have had at least two competitors every year.

The boys have won three sectional championships (2017-18) and the girls two (2022, 2024), thus sending the entire boys or girls team to states when that occurs. The boys placed fourth overall in 2017 and eighth the next two years while the girls were seventh in 2022.

In 2022, the River Hawks lost the boys team title by one point to Oneonta after their top runner, Jace Stuart, collapsed due to a medical condition on the homestretch while leading the race by more than 10 seconds. Had he won, Owego would have captured the team title by a 21-point margin.

GIRLS
Chrysler, a junior who medaled last year and earned all-state honors, returns for her fourth state run. As an 8th-grader in 2021, she placed 13th in Class C and took 24th in Class C the next year. Her sophomore season brought an 8th-place finish in Class B.

Previous state meet experiences gives Chrysler a little insight into what she needs to do on Saturday.

“It gives me an idea of what to expect,” she said. “I know I need to get out fast. I know it's going to be a competitive race. It helps me with my strategy”.

Chrysler said she wasn’t really sure what her expectations are this year.

“I'm definitely going to just get out hard, try and run a good race,” she said. “I'm trying not to put too many expectations on it because I don't want to limit myself, but I kind of just want to go out there and see what I can do. If that leads to another medal or a high finish, that would be great. I mean, obviously, I'll keep that in the back of my mind when I'm racing, but no specific goals.”

The junior is not guaranteed a medal this year just because she earned one last year, Heath noted.

“Just because you're top 10 last year doesn't mean you're going to be top 10 this year because the competition can always change,” he said. “New kids coming up. Competition definitely changes from year to year.

“It was her best performance of the year,” he added of Chrysler’s second consecutive individual sectional championship. “Time-wise, I think she's set up perfectly to be able to run her best time and in that situation, I feel like this year she could crack the top 20.”

Chrysler is not the only girls team member to make a return to states. Junior Stella Palladino qualified in her rookie campaign last year and placed 95th. In 2022, Lilly LaFever took 100th and Abigail McHugh came in 122nd. Lafever and McHugh missed states last year by one and two places, respectively.

That quartet, the team’s top four finishers at sectionals, are all juniors. Joining them at states will be seniors Maddison McEvoy and Sidney Senko, and sophomore Carolyn Schuyler.

“We had a new girl join the team,” Heath said. “She was a basketball player, Maddison McEvoy. She filled a crucial fifth spot that we would have been missing. They pulled it off at the end and ended up winning sectionals.”

A veteran of the state meet circuit, Chrysler has some advice for her teammates.

“I would say be smart,” she said. “Don't take it out too fast, but also be really aggressive. Make aggressive moves, be competitive, stay with your targets, and just be proud of your performance.”

The group probably won’t challenge for the team title, but the experience should be memorable.

“I look through all the results from the different sections and see how we stack up, and I have us, out of 11, projected somewhere around seventh or eighth,” Heath said. “It’s always nice going in without the same kind of pressure they had at sectionals, but going in saying, hey, here's an opportunity. You're in the best shape of your season. Your legs are the freshest, you’ve got the best competition around you. Let's go up and maybe try to hit some individual PR and individual goals. And if you all do that maybe you can beat a few of the teams that you weren't projected to beat.”

BOYS
Senior Sullivan O’Donnell is making his third appearance at the state meet after qualifying last year and in 2022. He placed 66th in 2023 and 83rd the year before.

Juniors Javan Belokur and Magavin Allen are both back for a second time. Belokur took 85th in 2023 and Allen was 62nd in 2022.

O’Donnell is hoping to have a better performance this time around.

“Last year, unfortunately, didn't go by the plans that I wanted,” he said. “This is sort of my redemption year, senior year. I'd like the opportunity to run with Javan again, see how long I can stick with him or maybe beat him. Some good in-team competition is always good, and I'm hoping to break 17 (minutes) as well. This is the perfect course for it, from what I've heard. I haven't run it personally, but I hear that it's a great place to run PRs, so I'm looking forward to it.”

O’Donnell is hoping Allen and Belokur have good meets also.

“Both of the guys, obviously we didn't get the sectional win that we wanted, but three individuals is still a big accomplishment,” he said. “I think that no matter how they perform at states, I'll be really pleased with it because we have made it this far.

“This is sort of the final spot, the fun finisher that we can still take seriously and do well at, but we don't have to worry about going on to further things necessarily.”

Heath would like the trio to have a competitive showing.

“Belokur and O'Donnell, I think it would be cool to see them be able to try to crack the top 40,” he said. “McGavin, he had a good comeback season. He had suffered an injury last year at the STAC championships and it was a tough season for him to kind of come back and get the confidence to run through that injury, but he was running great. Right now I feel like he's somebody who could be in the top 60.”

The Class B boys race is scheduled to start at 10:30 a.m. and the girls will run at 1 p.m. Tickets can be purchased at https://gofan.co/event/1712120?schoolId=NYSPHSAA.

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