2004 - 2005 Girls' Cross Country

Season Summary:

I could not have asked for more from my cross country team this fall. We had a successful season filled with personal and team-wide triumphs. Led by two talented, supportive captains, Sonia LeGoff ’05 and Jax Regan, ’05, the Kent Girls Cross Country Team ran their way to a winning season. We finished with a record of 8-5.

We began the season with a scrimmage meet against Housatonic Valley Regional High School, which we won with only 18 points and a forfeit by the opposing team. Only ten days later in practice, I asked the girls to run the course for time, and almost all of them dropped minutes from their previous records. Late September brought us the Canterbury Invitational, where our varsity runners again dropped minutes from their 3.1 mile times, bringing Kent to an 8th place finish out of 20 qualifying teams.

October marked the peak of our dual meet season, beginning with a 20-36 win against Westminster. The girls then ran a very competitive race against Choate, at which Emily Reynolds, ’07 finished first. Our 26-30 slim-margin loss was due merely to our smaller number of runners. On October 9th, we ran a tri-meet at home against Deerfield and Hotchkiss, two extremely powerful teams, and though we were beat by both teams (18-37 for each score), the meet was fraught with many a personal triumph, as all of the girls improved their course times at this race, many of them earning their season’s best time. We won our dual meet against Canterbury with a perfect score of 15-34. Then, we faced two more losses against Hotchkiss and Westminster at a second tri-meet. However, we more than redeemed ourselves at the Loomis Invitational on October 20th. Only seven runners strong, we finished 4th overall, and Emily Reynolds ’07 placed 12th in a field of 140 talented girls. At Millbrook we earned two more victories against Millbrook and Newark Academy with just enough runners (only 5) to score. Finally, on Parents Weekend we ran to a raging victory over Taft (17-38), a sweet and well-earned triumph for the girls after losing to Taft by only one point last season. Emily Reynolds ’07, Emma Bast, ’05, and Sonia LeGoff ’05 took 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places, respectively, and Jax Regan ’05 and Charly Thivierge-Lortie ’05 were not far behind them in 5th and 6th.

November began with one last tri-meet against The Gunnery and Canterbury. We won by forfeit against both teams with the Kent top five (Emily Reynolds ’07, Emma Bast ’05, Charly Thivierge-Lortie ’05, Jax Regan ’05, and Sonia LeGoff ’05) taking 1st through 5th places. There was no better proof of the team’s hard work and perseverance than the Founders League Championship at Choate on November 3rd. Founders was one of the few meets this season that we actually ran as an almost full team of ten runners. Although as a team we placed only 6th out of 8 teams, the girls certainly ran competitively. Both Emily Reynolds ’07 (8th) and Emma Bast ’05 (14th) placed in the top 15, and Jax Regan ’05 was not far behind in 21st. Almost every one of the girls earned a best time on the course. The New England Division II Championship at Canterbury did not amount to quite as triumphant a day for the Kent girls, as we finished in 15th out of 19 teams; however, the girls put in an admirable effort against a field of incredibly talented runners as they trudged through fields of wet snow and battled strong winds

Coach Biography: Michelle O'Brien, Asst. Coach

Coach O'Brien started running competitively in 8th grade and then ran four years for Taft's varsity cross country team and one year for the track team. O'Brien was captain of the girls' team in her senior year. O'Brien did not run competitively in college (Williams College), as tutoring, work-study job, and orchestra rehearsals (not to mention studying!) prevented her from giving that much time to a varsity sport. O'Brien took up distance running again the summer after college and is now running daily, trying to work up mileage for a couple road races a year.