September 17th, 2016 – 7th Annual Brush Invitational
Deerfield kicked off the 2016 Cross Country season today with the 7th annual running of the Brush Preseason Invitational, named in honor of Peter Brush, Deerfield’s longtime coach and still the Big Green’s #1 fan. It was a warm, beautiful day on the lower fields today, with abundant sunshine and a hint of autumn’s crispness in the steady breeze that blew across Deerfield’s course. Rather than break up teams by varsity and junior varsity, this meet is unscored and teams are divided by grade level to enhance participation and the spirit of camaraderie that comes with the start of another season.
Eleventh and twelfth grade athletes competed over the full 5K course, and Deerfield’s own Will McNamara ’18 won the boys’ race on the strength of a terrific final mile. Trailing by about ten seconds with a mile to go, McNamara steadily closed the gap on the leader from Northfield, passing him with about a half-mile to go and never looking back. McNamara was followed closely by co-captain Ethan Thayumanavan ’17 and junior Marco Marsans, who finished 4th and 5th, respectively. Donnie Sparks ’18 wasn’t far behind, finishing in 7th place, easily his best start to a season so far and evidence of a strong summer of training. Other Deerfield finishers were Alex Kaminsky ’17 (17th) and Charles Shearon ’18 (26th).
In the spirit of increasing participation and getting an early season benchmark, younger athletes at the Brush Invitational run a 2-mile course. Deerfield’s top two runners in this division were Ricardo Gonzalez and J.J. Siritantikorn, two stellar sophomores who broke up a formidable Northfield pack to finish 4th and 6th overall. Both second-year Big Green harriers look poised to make a big contribution on the Varsity level as the serious racing kicks off next week. Newcomer Alex Weinman ’19 had a great debut for Deerfield, finishing 11th overall, followed by another Big Green athlete in his first race, Teddy McCarthy ’20, who captured 19th place. The promising debuts continued with a 26th place finish for Neil Nie ’19, a 29th place finish for Eli Ji ’19, a 44th place finish for Nick Fluty ’20, and 51st, 53rd, and 58th place finishes for Jeffrey So ’20, Thomas Song ’19, and Seth Thayumanavan ’20.
DAXC returns to action next weekend with the Canterbury Invitational, an exciting early test for the varsity seven. The full team will return to action on October 1st at the Richard Miller Invitational hosted by the Westminster School.