Cheshire Girls Cross Country Team Kicks Off 2023 Season In Wilton

Article by Frank LoGiudice, Community Contributor

CHESHIRE, CT — The Cheshire High School Girls Cross Country Team is on their mark, they are all set and they are ready to go for the kickoff of their Fall 2023 season which begins Saturday, September 9 for the Wilton Invitational Meet in Wilton.

Rob Schaefer is returning as Head Coach and his Assistant Coach is Sarah Redford. The team has a total of 25 student-athletes for their three teams. The Tri-Captains for this year’s team are seniors Alexa Ciccone, Katie Hall & Mia Vientos.

“Cheshire Girls Cross Country is a ‘no-cut’ team that welcomes all. Our goal as coaches is to facilitate a life-long love of distance running…we are a family of runners and coaches who encourage each other always to do our best,” Schaefer said.

This team began their practices on August 24. Schaefer explained how he is training his athletes for the upcoming meets.

“We are training based on what the girls did in the summer,” he said. “We have runners who ran hundreds of miles and others who did only some training. We base early season workouts on summer training.”

Schaefer commented further about the prospects of his teams this year, “We have a strong team with depth this year. We are led by one of the top runners in Connecticut , senior Alexa Ciccone. She is the most accomplished distance runner in CHS history. She was All - New England last year. Senior Mia Ventos was all SCC and All state last year and is back. Junior Eva Curran and sophomore Emily D'Souza are veterans of last year's varsity team. We graduated Sam Mudry so do not have her services this year. We do have some strong varsity runners: sophomore Ava Ciccone, freshman Sage Falcon, freshman Sarah Curran, freshman Alexa Tirado. Sophomore Julia Gonzalez is a first-year runner with lots of possibilities.”

In 2022, the CHS Girls Cross Country Team had an undefeated season winning the Housatonic Division Championship for two consecutive years (2021 & 2022) and they won the SCC Division title in New Haven on October 19th.

As a warmup for their first meet on Saturday, September 9th in Wilton the CHS Girls Cross Country Teams will be competing in the annual New Haven Labor Day Road Race on Monday, September 4th. They will be in the 5K race.

Enjoy the video.