This past Saturday, the boys and girls cross country teams ran in one of the most important races of the year, the county championship at Darlington.

For the second week in a row, the girls team was very successful. The girls finished 3rd out of 9 times at Darlington Park. With a lot of help from junior runner Ashley Evans who once again came through for the Indians, Valley was able to hold on to the 3rd spot.

Evans finished 2nd overall in the race, with an impressive time of 19:19, breaking the school record once again. Evans is without-a-doubt Valley’s number one runner for the girls, as she has been consistently all year. She has finished first for Pascack Valley in every meet she has ran this year, and does not look like she has any intentions of breaking that streak for the rest of the season.

However, there were key contributors to the race Saturday besides Evans. Marlo Guastella (So.), another very consistent runner of Valley, finished 8th with a time of 20:35. Followed by her was Megan Thorn (So.), a relatively underrated runner, finished in an outstanding 17th place for the Indians.

Thorn not one of Valley’s more prominent runners. She has finished anywhere in between 2nd and 6th place throughout the entire season. However, one of Valley’s key runners in Nikki Criscuolo, did not run as well as  expected, and finished 42nd out of 58 places, and thus gave Thorn the opportunity to show off her talent, and did so very well.

It seems as if this year the Indians have called on many different runners to step up and fill a role in which was vacated for reasons such as injury or sickness.

Regardless, The girls team has qualified to move on to the Bergen County Meet of Champions, which will happen on Saturday. Being able to qualify for this meet is an honor, and an honor that everybody is excited for. This meet consists of the best-of-the-best from Bergen County. All teams qualify through the county championship meet. 

On the boys side, John McGrath, a virtually unheard of runner of PV that beat his personal record by 1:30 seconds, and finished 2nd for PV.

John Coyle, a consistent Valley runner, came in first for Valley and 21st overall in the race. Followed by him was McGrath who finished 23rd overall. Last but not least, Evan Jones finished 3rd for PV and 33rd overall. Jones did not run as well as expected either, but this made little difference because the highest PV placed was only 21st.

This week: The next meet is the boy and girls freshman and JV championships on Thursday. Boys varsity does not run until November 7, and the girls will run October 31.