Hopkins Girls Win Canterbury Invitational

On Saturday, September 21, the Hopkins boys and girls' XC teams traveled to the Canterbury School in New Milford, CT for the 51st running of their signature event, the Canterbury Cross Country Invitational. The 5k course is both challenging and rewarding, with a significant hill and also the opportunity to run fast on the downhills. The day was fairly warm and sunny, but not so much so as to be oppressive.

 

The boys ran first, in the more competitive Division 1 race, made up of NEPSTA division I and II XC schools. Hopkins was still missing its injured #1 runner, senior captain Lucas Llovera. In his absence, senior captain Logan Matthews ran well to finish first for the team in 17th place. Senior captain Luke Scheps was next in 25th, followed by senior Will Davitt in 26th. Sophomore Julian Peccia was 30th, followed by classmates Daven Kaphar and Matthew Palsa in 35th and 36th, and senior Nick Takoudes in 37th. The showing was good enough for 5th place (out of 12 Div 1 teams) with 133 points. More importantly, the boys team raced with more drive, determination, and success than in their previous race, and they are hungry to continue to improve.

 

In the girls' race, ninth grader Anoa Dawson took things out hard and maintained her position throughout the race, determinedly chasing the #3 finisher the entire time and not letting anyone else go by her, ultimately finishing 4th overall. Senior captain Saki Tomita ran smart and picked off multiple runners over the course of the race, finishing in 4th behind Anoa. Just behind her was senior Layla Kenkare, who also improved her position as late as the last 800m of the race, going from 10th to 6th. Similarly, junior Vivian Huang also passed runners when it counted most to finish 7th behind Layla. The remaining runners for Hopkins, all in the freshman class, ran as a strong pack, helping each other not to falter throughout the course of the race, and finishing in 12th, 13th, and 15th, respectively. They were Maddie Blank, Josephine Schiff, and Bea Colón-Wang. It's particularly impressive that the 7th Hopkins runner finished 15th overall!

 

With 4 in the top 10, and the 5th runner in 12th place, Hopkins scored a very low 33 points to win the meet outright for the first time in at least 18 years, and possibly longer! A very proud day for the girls' team!