Young Pierson Girls Cross Country Team Wins Fourth Consecutive County Title; Gardner Qualifies for Boys State Race for Second Year in a Row

The Pierson girls cross country team won its fourth consecutive Suffolk County Class D title on Friday at the Section XI Championships at Sunken Meadow State Park in Kings Park. After having won so many consecutive titles, one would think the team is made up of seasoned upperclassmen whose experience gave them the edge over everyone else.

It was the extreme opposite.

The Whalers only had one person run on Friday, freshman Sara O’Brien, who ran on last year’s county championship team. Sophomores Bennett Greene and Greylynn Guyer are by far the oldest on the team, with seventh-graders Josephine Mott and Maggie Greenwald making up the rest of the team. To say the team is young is an understatement, and longtime head coach Jim Kinnier said himself it was a very unique season.

Typically, Kinnier likes to start the season with at least seven runners. With five in tow, he reached out to the middle school program to see if it had any runners who could be ready to run at the varsity level. As Kinnier was told, there was not only one, but two girls who could not only compete, but excel. They were Mott and Greenwald. As the season wore on, two runners got hurt, and the Whalers were left with the five girls by the time postseason meets rolled around.

Mott, and the rest of the team, for that matter, hit their strides when it counted most. The young seventh-grader was the first to cross the finish line for the Whalers in 21:45.77, which placed her fourth overall in the county Class C/D race, but first among “D” finishers. O’Brien came in immediately after her in 21:48.30, then Guyer basically sealed the victory when she came in at 21:54.78, ahead of sophomore Gwen Connelly of Port Jefferson — Pierson’s main competition for the county title and the favorite to win it, at least at the start of the season.

Greenwald came in at 25:32.09 and Greene finished in 26:07.16, personal bests for both runners, but the win was basically already locked up thanks to Mott, O’Brien and Guyer.

What also made this season unique, Kinnier said, is that he never has had a team that progressed so much as this year’s team did. Pierson lost its first meet of the season by 19 points to Port Jeff, but as they ran against Port Jeff at invitationals throughout the season, their times would get closer and closer. By the time the Manhattan Invitational came along on October 8, the Pierson girls were beating the Port Jeff girls, then two weeks ago at divisions, the Whalers doubled down again and beat the Royals.

Port Jeff was also winning Friday’s race, Kinnier said, before Mott, O’Brien and Guyer all passed the Royals’ top runner in the last half-mile.

“All five girls ran their very best when it counted most,” Kinnier said. “Maggie passed a runner I asked her to. Bennett Greene just ran a great race. She beat a girl that had beaten her at divisions. It was very satisfying. Every girl mattered, all contributed.”

As for the boys, Justin Gardner, a junior, qualified for states for the second year in a row, after he finished fourth overall, second among “D” finishers, in 18:22.88. Coleman Dee finished his last race as a senior in 19:29.02.

The girls, as a team, and Gardner individually, will head up to the New York State Championships at Vernon Verona Sherrill High School, where they will face some stiff competition. Kinnier said that schools in the surrounding area of Syracuse, where the race is being held, as well as the Saratoga area, are two hotbeds for cross country. But, with the way his team is running, he thinks they could finish middle of the pack, which would be typically better than in years past.

“Our league schedule is not competitive. Outside of Port Jeff, there are teams who don’t have enough kids to make it a legitimate meet where we could score it,” Kinnier said. “So we don’t really get a chance to press ourselves until the larger invitationals, but in those areas every meet is a dogfight. They’re racing against each other constantly and because of the high competition, they’re all better for it. But for the first time, I have three girls who can finish under 22 minutes, which is really impressive. So I’m really interested in seeing how they do upstate. It’s been a lot of fun this season.”