While the Princeton Day School boys’ and girls’ squads finished well out of the running at the Mercer County Cross Country Championships last Friday, they gained a lot from the experience.
The PDS boys took 16th of 18 teams with junior Kevin Sun leading the way, taking 81st individually as he posted a time of 18:57.55 over the 5-kilometer course at Thompson Park in Jamesburg.
“This race for them is very, very fast because there are so many good teams,” said PDS head coach John Woodside.
“Competitively they get swept up. Their first miles were really, really good but I think it was the price and they fell apart. They fell apart more than we expected.”
As for the PDS girls’ squad, it placed 12th of 14 teams as junior Morgan Mills set the pace, finishing 41st in a time of 21:30.57.
“It was pretty nearly the same thing for the girls, they were a little more conservative on the way they went out,” said Woodside. “They held on to their performances a little better and a little closer.”
For Woodside, who is in his debut season at the helm of the program after guiding the Princeton High boys’ team for many years, the lessons learned at the county meet are the part of a long term process.
“We are trying to raise our level and we are working as hard as we can to get better,” said Woodside.
“We are going to take everything we learned this season and we are going to change the effort, refocus and prepare better. I think the big thing is to prepare better. This county is so good that it is very difficult but I think they ran as hard as they could and as well as they could and I am proud of them for the effort.”
PDS is looking for a big effort as it wraps up the fall by competing in the state Prep B championship meet at the Blair Academy on October 28.
“It is like we get a chance to have a re-do; we get another crack at it,” said Woodside.
“I think they are going to take this, saying maybe we didn’t do as well as we wanted to so let’s get it done next Wednesday. I think that is where our focus is now. We need to take the momentum and continue it on and finish the season out in style next Wednesday. The level is much more to our liking, the school sizes are much closer to ours, and the competitive level is much closer to us. We’ll do very well there. I am really looking forward to doing some good things over there and then starting to think about preparing for next year.”