Wolfpack looks to become first girls team from Golden State since 1990 to secure victory in marquee race at Van Cortlandt Park

By Erik Boal, DyeStat Editor

Claremont CA planned its trip to the 46th Manhattan Cross Country Invitational, in part, with the aspiration of competing against 11-time national champion Fayetteville-Manlius on the Hornets’ home turf in New York.

WATCH LIVE FINISH LINE WEBCAST

But with Fayetteville-Manlius deciding not to compete Saturday in the Edward J.J. Bowes Girls Eastern States Championship race for the first time since 2004, Claremont now has its sights set on another significant opportunity at Van Cortlandt Park.

The Wolfpack is looking to become the first California girls team since 1990 and only the third in meet history to win the Eastern States title. Palos Verdes prevailed in 1987, with Mt. Carmel and Palos Verdes producing the only 1-2 finish by California girls teams in meet history three years later.

“I think that that is definitely the goal for all of us. But as a team, we are trying to ignore the expectations and rankings of ourselves and just go out there and do what we know we can do,” Claremont senior Sydney Hwang said. “I can tell that there is something truly special about this group of girls, and I am so excited to see just what we can achieve.”

Following a ninth-place finish in its inaugural appearance at Nike Cross Nationals last season, Claremont decided its annual out-of-state trip would be to New York this year, looking to challenge itself by facing reigning national champion Fayetteville-Manlius in the Eastern States race at Manhattan.

Wolfpack coach Bill Reeves even went so far as to ask meet directors if they could place the teams in adjacent boxes on the starting line.

Instead, Fayetteville-Manlius – winner of nine of the past 11 Eastern States girls team titles – will square off Saturday with Saugus, a California Division 2 rival of Claremont, in the varsity girls ‘B’ race.

The Wolfpack has shifted focus to preparing to race additional New York powers Liverpool, Niskayuna and Shenendehowa, along with returning Florida program The Bolles School, which placed third last year behind Fayetteville-Manlius and Liverpool.

Claremont, which will also rely heavily on Maddie Coles, Azalea Segura-Mora, Kalinda Reynolds, Angie Gushue, Julia Marriott and Haleigh Guerrero in support of Hwang, will look to duplicate its success from the seeded race Sept. 29 at the Stanford Invitational, with all seven athletes placing in the top 30.

“Even though we won’t be able to race against F-M as we had planned to do since over a year ago, I think that this is still an amazing opportunity to get a feel for how the East Coast states race and get to race some of the top talent that we would otherwise never face,” Hwang said. “We are going into this race without knowing exactly what to expect, but I feel that travel trips like this give us invaluable experience, which further develops us as individual runners and as a team.”

Claremont is no stranger to competing against elite opponents in other sections of the country during the regular season, placing fourth in the gold division race in 2016 at the Roy Griak Invitational in Minnesota, before winning the elite race last year at the Bob Firman Invitational in Idaho.

“Being able to go on these trips is an incredible opportunity and it gives us a chance to make ourselves known even more as a nationally ranked team,” Reynolds said. “Even by just traveling with the team, we create these very strong bonds that improve our team dynamic and make our performance in races even better.”

Claremont is also looking to join Fayetteville-Manlius and Saratoga Springs NY as the only teams to run under 74 minutes on the historic 2.5-mile course.

Fayetteville-Manlius lowered its own meet record from 72:57 in 2009 to 72:06 last year to secure a fourth consecutive championship.

“Considering how close our gap was between our Nos. 1 and 5 runners at Cool Breeze and our Nos. 1 and 7 runners at Stanford, we know how to look out for our teammates in a race and use them to push each other to do even better,” Reynolds said. “I have complete confidence that my girls will adapt well to the shorter 2.5-mile course and have strong races.”

It isn’t just Claremont’s girls team that has traveled to New York in search of strong competition, with the Wolfpack also competing in the Peter Aquilone Eastern States boys race, which does feature Fayetteville-Manlius, Rhode Island powers La Salle Academy and Bishop Hendricken, along with six-time champion Christian Brothers Academy NJ.

Fayetteville-Manlius is the only program in meet history to sweep both Eastern States team titles in the same year, achieving the feat in 2014. In addition, no California boys team has won the Eastern States crown since it was added to the schedule a decade ago.

With several veterans on both Claremont rosters, including members of the teams that swept the Division 2 state titles in 2016, experience and maturity in high-stakes races Saturday won’t be an issue.

“I have learned that it is important to not get too overwhelmed with the excitement of traveling to a new place with my team,” Reynolds said. “I still get excited, but I also have in the back of my mind the entire trip that we came here to race. I try to gently remind my teammates that haven’t gone on travel trips to eat well, drink water and rest, so that we can all have the best race possible.”

It has been 20 years since a girls team West of the Mississippi River captured the Eastern States title, when top-ranked Campbell County High brought the championship back to Wyoming.

Claremont is looking to not only end that drought, but produce another memorable performance by a California girls program more than 30 years after Palos Verdes made history by traveling across the country to win one of the nation’s most prestigious cross country races.

“I feel like the experience from previous trips definitely gives us a lot more confidence going into New York this year,” Hwang said. “It was pouring rain at NXN, and all of our girls still stepped it up to have an amazing team finish. The travel and time difference are a bit tiring to deal with, but I feel that once we are all stepping up to the line together, all of the distractions will go away and we will just be focused on what we need to do.”