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Stuart Cross Country Beats Nerves; Takes Third Straight Prep B Crown
By Bill Alden
As the Stuart Country Day School cross country team travelled to last Wednesday's state Prep B championship meet at Blair Academy, the runners hardly made a peep on the long ride.
For Stuart head coach Tom Harrington, the eerie silence on the trip was not a good sign. "The girls are usually motor-mouths on the way to a race," said Harrington, noting that many of his runners slept on the ride. "The team was real, real tense. I tried my silly jokes but nothing worked. They were just tight."
The Tartans knew that they came into the races as the hunted, having won two straight Prep B titles and four of the last six. "They had a reason to be nervous," added Harrington. "They had something to lose. They knew that they had very little room for things to go wrong."
Showing their championship mettle, the Stuart runners fought off their nerves and coolly accomplished their Prep B three-peat as they placed first with Saddle River coming in second and Ranney School taking third.
Senior star Emily Driscoll led the way, taking third in the individual standings as she covered the hilly 3.1 mile course in a time of 21:05. She was followed by Laura Brienza in seventh, Catherine Currie in ninth, Nicole Huber in 11th and Saskia Van Nieuwenhuyse in 12th.
In Harrington's view, it was the performances of Huber and Van Nieuwenhuyse that made the difference last Wednesday. "The key was Nicole and Saskia," asserted Harrington of the freshman Huber and the senior Van Nieuwenhuyse.
"We knew it was going to be a tight meet and that we could have problems at our bookends. I told Nicole and Saskia that we needed them to do well in the 4-5 spots and beat out Saddle River's No. 4. They ran side-by-side the whole race. They've been running with each other all fall."
Harrington was a bit frustrated that his top gun Driscoll did not add an individual state crown to her glittering final season which has seen her win most of her races and break school and course records along the way.
"There seems to be a Stuart curse," said Harrington with a laugh. "We haven't had an individual winner at the Prep Bs even though many years we've had the top seed. Emily had beaten both of those girls this fall. I told her that one subpar race does not make for a subpar year."
That minor disappointment pales in comparison to what Driscoll and her teammates achieved this fall. "The girls have been very good following race strategy this fall, I'm very proud of them," said Harrington, whose team won its sixth straight Patriot Conference team title earlier in mid-October. "This puts a stamp on the program and shows that this is not a one-shot deal."
It was character, though, as much as tactical savvy that helped pull the Tartans through. "One of my mottoes is 'steel forged through fire,'" explained Harrington, whose team wound up its season by taking fifth in the team standings at the Mercer County Championship meet last Friday.
"We were iron ore this fall, we went through some heat. We had to deal with injuries and improved competition. We ended up with a nice building."
And the chance to enjoy a boisterous ride home last Wednesday.
