By Bill Alden

John Woodside knew that his Princeton Day School boys’ cross country team wasn’t going to be in the hunt for a title as it ran in the Mercer County Championships last Friday.

“This race today for us is not about where we are going to place, we are not able to compete with this level,” said PDS head coach Woodside.

Instead, Woodside was looking for his runners to compete hard in the competition held at Washington Crossing Park.

“We try to go out and have each one of them run their best,” said Woodside. “I think they had great spirit and great effort. The results were good.”

PDS got a very good effort from junior Gunnar Clingman, who took 31st individually in the boys’ varsity race, clocking a time of 17:11 over the 5,000-meter course.

“Gunnar is running really well, he wanted to break 17 today,” said Woodside, whose squad placed 15th in the team standings at the event won by WW/P-North.

“He did not quite do it, but he is on the verge. When he gets the right race on the right day, he will do it.”

Panther junior captain Tharun Potluri had a fine day, clocking a time of 19:53 to take 106th.

“Tharun had his best time, so he ran really well,” said Woodside, who got some solid running from sophomore William Sun, the 92nd place finisher in 19:18, and junior Ben Bigdelle, who took 103rd in 19:43.

“We had a couple of guys who had some illness but there were a lot of good times from the other guys, a couple of PRs, and that is what you want.”

PDS wants to end the season on a high when it competes in the state Prep B meet on November 6 at Blair Academy

“It is good because we have a chance to train some and get ready to go,” said Woodside.

“Newark Academy is in another place; we are not going to touch them, they are going to win. There are three other teams that are very close to where we are — Pennington, Rutgers Prep, and Gill St. Bernard’s. We are going to give it the best we have got and I know the kids are going to be ready to go.”

Woodside sees good things ahead for his boys’ squad. “It is a better team than we had a right to believe; we lost three seniors who were supposed to be on the team,” said Woodside.

“Two of the top five are freshmen and there are no seniors so we are all coming back. There is a very strong eighth grade class with three really good runners coming in next year and anyone else I don’t know. I didn’t know some of these guys were coming. Ben played soccer the last two years and he started running with his brother and he liked it so he decided to come out for cross country so you never know. Three of our top five I had never even met before.”

The Panthers have some good prospects coming back on the girls’ side with freshman Maddy Weinstein leading the way for the Panthers at the county meet, taking 62nd in a time of 23:08.

“We had six girls this year,” said Woodside, noting that junior standout Alex Hollander and promising freshman Meghan Rentner were sidelined due to injury for the counties but could be back for the Prep B meet.

“Maddy ran close to a PR today. The girls’ team is looking pretty good. We have no seniors so they all come back, hopefully all healthy.”