Girls Cross Country Looking to Make Another Run

The Ridgewood girls cross country program boasts more banners than the Boston Celtics. The achievements include league, county, group, sectional and state championships, so needless to say expectations "run" high for the Maroons.

However, for many 2009 would have to be considered a down year for Ridgewood after they failed to win the league championship, a title they once held for more than 20 consecutive years.

This season, head coach Jacob Brown–the man who led the way for a majority of the glory years–will be tasked to once again return Ridgewood to prominence.

"We have three girls returning this year, including our top two runners Hanako Shigenobu and Grayson Llerandi," noted Brown adding, "But we've also got some girls coming over from track and field that I think should really be able to help us out."

Shigenobu, a junior, and Llerandi, a senior, routinely crossed the finish line one-two for the Maroons in all of the biggest meets of the season, including a 6^th place finish at the Bergen meet of champions and a 5^th place showing at the state sectionals.

However, that's as far as the Maroons would go in 2009 after failing to advance past the group championships.

2010 figures to be a different story for the Maroons thanks to leadership shown by Llerandi and fellow senior Brenna Fischer, who have gathered their teammates for captain's practices all summer long.

"The girls have been putting in a lot of hard work to get ready for the season," said Brown. "And now that we officially have gotten the team practices underway I'm confident the girls will be more than ready when we compete in the first dual meet of the year on September 11^th."

Ridgewood's first opponent will be Paramus when the two team's square off at Darlington to kick off the season.