Rizzo Leads Pierson Girls Country to Second-Place Finish at Division Championships

Evelyn Rizzo appears to have a competitive streak in her.

In the only other meet the Pierson cross country team had at Sunken Meadow State Park prior to Monday afternoon’s Division Championships is when it competed against Port Jefferson. Rizzo, a seventh-grader, came across the finish line visibly upset, perplexing head coach Yani Cuesta.

It was the first time the young Rizzo hadn’t won a race she competed in this season, and that still remains.

Competing in the team qualifier 5K on Monday, Rizzo won the 5K in 20:39.70, over 20 seconds ahead of the next finisher, Savannah Tychnowitz, a freshman from Rocky Point.

“She’s very, very competitive,” Cuesta said of her new top runner, Rizzo. “I’m sure she’s super happy and psyched. This is the first Sunken Meadow race that she’s finished in front of the entire pack, so I’m sure in that sense that ego boost is going to be great for her. That competitive thing is what drives her.”

Rizzo’s top time helped the Whalers finish second out of 20 teams in their race with 137 points only behind Bayport-Blue Point. Sophomore Josie Mott finished 18th overall out of 154 runners in 22:50.80. Senior Sara O’Brien finished right behind her at 19th in 22:52.50. Sophomore Maggie Greenwald (23:49.50) finished 43rd, senior Bennett Greene finished 79th in 25:11.10 and freshman Olivia Stiglitz finished 134th in 28:59.20.

A rule change this season had only the champions of each league run in the championship 5Ks on Monday, leaving 12 open spots for teams to petition to get into that race. All others competed either in the team qualifier or individual races. Previously, the top two teams in each league would automatically compete in the championship race and the rest of the teams in the county would compete separately in what’s called team qualifier or individual races.

Cuesta petitioned, she said, so she could have her runners compete against the county’s best runners to try to improve their times, but outside factors altered those plans a bit. Scheduled to leave Sag Harbor at 10:30 a.m. to make it to Sunken Meadow with plenty of time to spare for a 1 p.m. start, the team eventually left at 10:45 a.m. and finally reached the park just after 1.

Scuffling to make sure her team could run, Cuesta called officials and informed them they would be late and they allowed her team to run in the team qualifier race instead. Although not what she wanted, it turned out that maybe things worked out anyway, being that Port Jefferson, the team the Whalers will be vying with for a Suffolk County Class D Championship against at the Section XI Championships on Thursday, November 6, also ran in the team qualifier race.

“In that sense, it’s good and everything happens for a reason,” Cuesta said. “Maybe that was the reason we had our issues and got here when we did, so we’ll see how things pan out. Next week, we run at 2 so that will give us a little more time to get here.”

Overall, as it pertains to her runners, Cuesta thought they ran well.

“The top three looked good,” she said. “I’m glad [Rizzo] didn’t get passed along here. We had been working on hills, which was her biggest fear. We talked about how if you have a hard time going up the hills then you have to make up the time going down. I think that competitiveness drove her to really work on it and we had done it the past two weeks, so it was really good to see she had a girl right behind her at the base of Cardiac, and then to see her come off Cardiac with about 50 yards. She’s so intense.”

As for the Pierson boys, they didn’t have enough runners to compete as a team in the team qualifier race, but they did have four who ran. Freshman Lincoln Fischer was the fastest of the bunch, finishing 42nd out of 184 runners in 20:03.40. Freshman Jaxson Schumann finished 114th in 21:44.60, eighth-grader Leo Mogavero finished 126th in 22:13.80 and junior Quincy Renaud finished 168th in 25:22.