By TIM TAYLORTioga County Sports Report
QUEENSBURY — Newark Valley 8th-grader Hadley Merrill will make her debut as the Cardinals’ lone state qualifier at the NYSPHSAA Cross Country Championships here Saturday, but she won’t be alone. She has a whole community behind her.
That was clearly evident when several of her teammates joined her at practice last Friday, the day after their season ended at the Section IV Class D championships.
Merrill placed second at sectionals, qualifying her for one of five individual spots at states. The team finished second overall.
“I think the beauty is they're so supportive of each other,” coach Eric D’Arcy said. “There's no jealousy.
“You can look at Brooke (Illsley). Brooke ran her best season by far and away, and instead of being a senior who could have been bitter, she was hugging Hadley and was so excited and proud of her. And that's that whole team, they're just so supportive.”
“They're very supportive,” Merrill added. “It makes me have more confidence.”
Merrill decided to run cross country to get into shape for wrestling and it paid dividends she wasn’t expecting.
She won the Tioga four-team meet, was the runner-up at the Marathon Invitational and IAC championships, and took third at the Southern Cayuga five-team meet and the IAC Large School championships.
Merrill trailed only Odessa-Montour’s Janne Anderson at the Marathon Invitational and IAC championships, but bested the O-M runner at sectionals. At sectionals, she also defeated the top competitors from Southern Cayuga and Trumansburg, and had a better time than Lansing’s No. 1 runner (competed in Class C), all of whom had beaten her in earlier meets.
“I think it's amazing how I did that,” Merrill said, of qualifying for states. “Coming into my season it was one of my goals to do the best that I could.”
A trip to states wasn’t even part of the plan when D’Arcy approached Merrill about running cross country.
“We had talked to Hadley a little bit in the spring during track season about running cross country and she had decided she wanted to run cross country,” he said. “She's a good runner, we saw that in modified. We were not expecting the kind of performance that she had to make it to states.
“Early in the year we weren't even sure where she would rank on our team, but she hates to lose and she works so unbelievably hard. Probably the telltale moment, my wife (Tracey D'Arcy) and I, and coach Norm (Cheney), we were watching her one day doing speed work in the ‘bowl’ with our team and she was beating most of the varsity boys team.
“Every girl on our team had pretty much just about stopped doing these because they couldn't make it through. It was a hot day and everything and she kept going one after the other and I turned to my wife and I said that girl, that's a state runner right there. That's a girl who's going to make it to states, so we were very excited to see her do that and to see the accomplishments that she achieved this year.”
Still, Merrill and her coaches have not set any expectations for states other than for her to perform to the best of her abilities.
“I'm going to do the best I can,” she said.
“We don't have a lot of expectations,” D’Arcy added. “We want to go have fun, enjoy the experience. You don't want to put a lot of pressure on a young kid in that situation.”
Merrill comes into the meet with the ability to do well and if she can run a strong race, could bring home a medal (top 20 finishers).
“I think she goes in ranked something like 28th in the state,” D’Arcy said. “If she has a great race and breaks the top 20, that would be a phenomenal race, but we're just happy she's there and getting that experience of being there.”
The Class D girls race begins at 10 a.m.
——————
IN PHOTO 1: Hadley Merrill. IN TOP PHOTO: Hadley Merrill (R) has received plenty of support from teammates like Brook Illsley (L) in preparation for the state championships. … TCSR PHOTOS.
