Over 120 middle schoolers from the Sagamore, Samoset and Seneca cross-country teams competed on the Sachem East 1.5-mile cross-country course. The tri-meet, used to determine the top overall team and individual performers from across Sachem’s three middle school teams, was dubbed the Jeff Stone Memorial XC Meet, a nod to former Sachem teacher and coach Jeff Stone.

Coach Angermaier (Sagamore), coach Byrne (Samoset) and coach Michta (Seneca) had their squads prepared for a large invitational-style cross-country meet, something that many of the middle schoolers were able to experience at the Sunken Meadow Invitational earlier in their season. Additionally, the athletes all arrived at Sachem East in plenty of time to preview the challenging course composed of grass, trails, rolling hills and one very challenging hill climb.

Despite the many challenges presented by the tough course, athletes and teams were still able to manage several stellar performances. On the girls side, Kayley Catalano (Seneca) was able to best the rest of the Sachem competition with an impressive time of 10:23. Following her were Lexi Martoscia (Sagamore) in second, Madison DeRosa (Seneca) in third, Shania Barravecchio (Seneca) in fourth and Samantha McCullagh (Sagamore) in fifth. There were nearly 50 total finishers in the girls race. The team title was won by Seneca (24 points) in a close race over Sagamore (31 points), with Samoset finishing third (80 points).

On the boys side, the top overall finisher was Jack Reigger (Samoset) in a time of 9:51. Following him were Thomas Koeppel (Seneca) in second, Paolo Calvacca (Samoset) in third, Alec Torquato (Sagamore) in fourth and Michael Lubniewski (Seneca) in fifth. The boys race had over 70 total finishers. The team title was won by Seneca (32 points) over Samoset (44 points) and Sagamore (50 points).