This year, cross-country had another great season. The girl’s team dominated every meet they ran. The boy’s team crushed the competition, losing only once to Holy Innocents by small margins. The coaches and runners came out of the season holding their heads high and proud of their accomplishments.
Coach Sadtler speaks highly of the performance of the athletes this season. “Lots of wins and lots of consistent PRs throughout the season. Everyone should feel really proud of themselves,” he says. The team stood out from previous years due to the connected nature of the runners this year. “Everybody felt like they were connected to one another . . . athletes would cheer people on as opposed to just going to drink water,” he says. “We could have easily lost that team vibe, but we never did. I think on the whole we do that well, but some years it just doesn’t happen.”
According to Sadtler, team members formed bonds and relationships across grades and genders. “Sometimes, you have little cliques by grade and gender, and [this year] we were just a big blob. [The team bonding] was exceptional,” he says. This year’s cross-country team should feel very proud of the friendships they made and strengthened.
Girls cross country had one of the strongest teams by far. They were strong and confident during every race. “It’s been several years since we’ve had a girl’s team as dominant as this one,” says Sadtler. The top runners were 7th-grader Victoria Jones, 7th-grader Finley Braintwain, 7th-grader Gabrielle Boucher, and 8th-grader Caroline deButts. Even Coach Sadtler noticed their tight bonds. “What I loved about that dynamic of Victoria, Finley, Caroline, and Gabrielle is that there was a lot of competition between those girls, but at no point did I [feel] any animosity between them,” he says. “When you finish within half a second of one another, but you do it every single week, you can get really frustrated. But they didn’t . . . they acted like a team; they supported each other . . . cheered each other when one beat the other. Sometimes that doesn’t happen.”
The boys had a strong and stable team. Unfortunately, the second runner of the boys’ team, James Justice, injured himself after the first race. In his absence, there was always a consistent and significant gap between the first runner, Declan Schuette, and the second finisher. Rohan Parsh, Ryan Robinson, and Kedar Bhal were always a steady top five. “Boys had a fast first finisher, Declan Schuette, and then we had a pretty good grouping of our 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and sometimes our 5th guy came in pretty tight,” says Sadtler. “It was a very competitive set of teams.” Both gender divisions had notable seasons.
Besides the home competitions, Westminster races two away meets, the IMAXC State and Darlington. Westminster dominated Darlington, earning first place for girls and boys. Darlington is a weekend competition held in Rome, Georgia, that everyone enjoys attending. Unfortunately, some of Westminster’s top runners could not attend this year. Coach Sadtler was proud of the win at Darlington despite not having all the top runners because it was an away meet early on a Saturday morning. The IMAXC State Meet was the last race the cross-country team ran, and they won by a landslide against other Georgia independent schools.
On race days, the Westminster Cross Country coaches are always busy welcoming the opposing teams, so they appoint a captain of each gender for every race. This year, the female captains were Jaina Alexander, Victoria Jones, Caroline deButts, Finley Braintwain, Siri Parikh, and Rekha Reddy. Rohan Parsh, Patten Bitter, Declan Schuette, Ryan Robinson, Rhett Kirtley, and Eric Woodrum were the male captains. Coaches choose these captains because they demonstrate leadership and encourage their teammates, keeping morale high. This year, many captains scored points for the team and finished in the top seven runners.
Overall, this year’s cross-country team excelled in connectivity. The team persevered despite numerous practices canceled due to heat and a meet canceled due to weather. Not surprisingly, it was another great year for the cross-country team.