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Sports

Girls XC captures Bernie Magee Memorial Class Meet Saturday

First team title in the 31-year history of the event.

With last week's victory over Rahway, the Summit girls cross country team headed to Saturday's 31st annual Bernie Magee Memorial Class Meet at Warinanco State Park in Elizabeth with some confidence in their stride.

After Saturday, they established themselves as a team to be reckoned with.

Summit captured its first Bernie Magee title in the history of the event, by edging Bridgewater, 201-208.

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"What a day!," Summit coach Dave Field said via e-mail to Patch, who is in his sixth year at the helm. "I did not expect to win and was only hoping to improve on our seventh place finish from last year."

Senior Katie Watson captured the senior race, finishing first out of 119 runners over 3.25 miles, with a personal record of 19:33.9 on the Warinanco championship course. Watson led the Summit seniors to an 11th overall finish out of 20 teams.

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"She ran amazingly today!  I'm very proud of her as she works extremely hard each and every day," added Field.  "Last year, in the junior race, she finished second and she was determined all week to run well, with an eye on winning. She has high goals for herself and the team and leads by example, putting forth great efforts day in and day out."

Summit's junior runners, led by Izzy Yozzi's 10th place finish (21:18.2), paced the juniors to a fifth place finish overall out of 21 teams.

The sophomores captured first place overall amongst 19 teams as each ran personal records on the Warinanco championship course. Hannah Rose placed second (20:42.0),  Emma Olcott finished sixth (21:20.7) and Kirsty Gargiulo placed seventh to finish in the top 10.

"Hannah did outstanding, as did Emma, who was actually running in her first meet of her career (injured last year). Kirsty anchored the sophomore scoring with a solid seventh  place.  Rebecca Cummings, Jenny Stabler and Devin Lawler also ran personal bests on the course. They all have tremendous upsides," said Field.

Summit returns home for their first home meet Tuesday against Governor Livingston, Union Catholic and Hillside. Meet time is set for 4 p.m. at Memorial Field.

"The title is a testament to an overall team effort. We stress working together and that, even though running in races is based on an individual effort, it takes a whole team to garner these types of victories.  We do understand that this is only one meet and we have many more to come, but this will help our overall attitude in our drive to achieve our goals as we move throughout the season," added Field.

31st annual Bernie Magee Memorial Class Meet – Team Results

Team Scoring: 1. Summit, 201 pts; 2. Bridgewater, 208; 3. Bernards, 212; 4. Rumson, 225; 5. North Hunterdon, 228.; 6. Mount St. Mary, 260; 7. Westfield, 279; 8. South Brunswick, 313; 9. New Providence, 402; 10. Woodbridge, 478.

Note: Team scoring for the meet is based off of the 10th thru 12th grades.

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