Sectionals Harrier

November 6, 2006                                                                                           Final Edition - No. 13

The Eagle Harrier

It’s All Over!!

Tears Flow Following Sectionals

Race was dedicated to the ailing Kyle Bard.

Liverpool, New York – Senior Kyle Merrill best summed up his and many others’ feelings on Friday with his simple, but eloquent statement: “I never wanted this day to come”.  For Merrill, and six other senior runners, “this day” meant the end of their high school cross country running careers.  For the boys, four ‘proven harriers’ ended their careers, but unfortunately, only three were at the meet competing, as senior Kyle Bard was too ill to conclude his career on the race course.  Seniors Shelby Brayton, Kyle Merrill, and Andy Degray all ran their last races for the boys, and Catie White, Libby Forward, and Kim Armani ran their final races for the girls.  “We really felt bad for Kyle Bard” said senior Andy Degray, “it sucks that he couldn’t be here to run, he’s worked so hard”.  

     Jeff Donohue, proving once again that he’s number one, led the Eagles across the finish line for the 12^th straight time.  The last time a J-E runner led the team in every race was during the 1995 season and senior Justin Wolfanger did the exact same feat.  “This is no small feat” said J-E Coach Roman, to go out there and to be on-your-game for a dozen meets with highly motivated and trained athletes trying to run you down is very difficult”.  “To give you an idea of how rare a feat that Donohue has just accomplished, consider this: I’ve coached cross country since the fall of 1986 for J-E, and in that twenty-one year span, it’s been done now three times”.  “Noel Pezzolesi led the team in every race back in 1989 as well”.

“I would like to point out, that in those other two seasons, both Wolfanger and Pezzolesi made it to the state meet, and Jeff fell short of this accomplishment”.  Donohue was 24^th in a time of 18.16.

Next in for J-E was Donato Direnzo who made a nice comeback in the race by keeping closer to Donohue.  Direnzo was 51^st in 18.57, only 41 seconds behind Jeff.  Senior Kyle Merrill, running despite a severely swollen ankle, was next for J-E in 65^th place (19.20).  Merrill was stung by a bee on Tuesday, and his whole lower body reacted and swelled up dramatically so much so, that he had to go to the doctor’s on Thursday to get a shot of steroids.  Merrill has not disclosed many details of what he calls “The Shot”, but it did say it hurt to sit down after.  Freshman Cody Stanton was only two places behind Merrill (68^th place/19.26) and was J-E’s fourth scorer, two places ahead of senior Shelby Brayton (70^th place/19.28).

J-E’s five-man total was 253 points, exactly in the middle of a very competitive class C field.  Tully won the race with 29 points.

     Normal number three man Mike Marrero battled illness and a terrible cramp to finish as J-E’s sixth man (84^th place/19.54), followed by senior Andy Degray (94^th place/20.08), junior Jake Griffin was next (111^th place/20.32), with super sophomores Kyle Becker and George Brauchle rounding out the field in 129^th (21.24), and 137^th (21.48) respectively.

     The season will conclude on Wednesday evening with the Fall Sports Banquet, where all the seniors will be honored by Coach Roman.  “This was one of my favorite teams of all time” said Roman, “these guys truly became like friends to me and I will miss them terribly”.  “I will miss the Frisbee games and all the funny banter that comes from some very funny guys”.  “They are gentlemen and will make it in this world”.