Strong finishes
La Plata, North Point compete in cross country quad-meet
There’s most likely no future for Josh Dawson as a basketball coach.
As a cross country coach? That’s a different story.
The Northern girls finished second through seventh and went on to sweep North Point, La Plata and host Leonardtown and remain perfect in the Southern Maryland Athletic Conference dual meet season.
The Patriots (11-0 overall), who defeated the Raiders (20-41), Eagles (15-50) and Warriors (15-50), are one win ahead of Leonardtown and need just one win in Wednesday’s finale against Chopticon and host Patuxent to win the title outright as Northern holds the tiebreaker.
“I’m happy overall and I think everyone’s working really hard and their times are dropping,” Dawson said. “I’m excited to see how the end of the season goes.”
Dawson’s future as a hoops coach was clear when he and his runners chucked empty water bottles from the bleachers and all missed the trash bin. Maybe they weren’t aiming for the trash? Or maybe they were?
Leonardtown freshman Nelle Ray won the race in 19 minutes 6.9 seconds to help the Raiders (10-1) take home two wins.
“I was kind of going to let Abby lead it for a bit and see where that took me and if I could pass her,” Ray said of Northern’s Abby Sweeney, who finished second, more than 27 seconds behind. “I knew she was really good, but I passed her right before we went in the woods the second time and then I just used all the turns and curves in the woods to get away from her.”
“She really wanted to beat Abby today so we said, ‘Go out and do what
you need to do that’ and she did,” Leonardtown head coach Brooke Fallon said. “She’s just going crazy out there. She’s just a big surprise to us.”
Sweeney led an onslaught of seven Patriots to the finish line as Claudia Dolan (19:46.2), Sarah Deresky (20:20.4), Alyssa Tatum (20:49.3), Abby Setzfand (20:51.4) and Hannah Mack (20:54.1) all followed Sweeney to the finish line.
“I thought it was a pretty good race and I definitely had someone to push me,” Sweeney said of Ray. “She pushed me throughout the race and got me after the 2-mile [mark]. It was definitely a hard course with