Schools
2012 Preview: Garden City Boys and Girls Cross Country
The Trojan harriers look to build off of their terrific 2011 seasons and return to States.
The boys are no longer flying under the radar as the dark horse in Nassau County as they are coming off their first county championship in more than 40 years and then had a strong team showing at the State meet. Led by captain and All-State runner Andrew Morra, the Garden City runners are the highest ranked Nassau County Class B team at number 19 on the 2012 pre-season State listing.
This cross country season the Garden City girls will be looking to finally solve the dominance of North Shore's long distance team as they graduated a couple of All-NYS runners. In the latest pre-season polls the Lady Trojans are ranked twelfth overall and fourth for Class B in the State. Leading the young team will be the Gerland sisters - Stephanie and Jennifer, a freshman and sophomore respectively, who will both push the top runners on Long Island, and will look to return to the state championship meet.
Boys coach Bob Busch will continue to look for the same week over week improvement that worked so well last season. "If the boys continue their improvement from last year we should be in for a pretty good season. I know Morra will produce, it’s just a matter of the next four or five runners doing what they are capable of," he said.
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Busch will be looking for Neil Quigley, Tim Josephs, Dan Finnegan, Andrew Magdich, Mark DeSantis and Tim Feyer to run strong and score for the team.
Girls coach Charlie Cuzzo will be looking for several of the young veterans to step up to supply scoring depth. If Laurel Fisher, Sarah Rubino or Jackie O’Hare can continue their improvement, Cuzzo believes this will be one of his strongest cross country teams in many years and hopes to see the girls improve on their second place finish of a year ago.
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The schedule has five conference meets that will be held at Bethpage State Park in September and October beginning Sept. 19. The first two conference meets are 4K runs while the remainder of the season will be run over 5K courses at Bethpage. The season will culminate with conference championships Oct. 27, Section VIII championships Nov. 3 and the New York State meet Nov. 10.
