Lansing XC sweeps IAC Championships

Last Thursday in Marathon, the IAC Cross-Country Championships took place, and Lansing led the way. Both the boys and girls teams for the Bobcats came away with the best team scores in the conference, which sets them up for success at the Section IV Championships this week.

The boys squad is led by strong seniors, with three of the Bobcats’ top-five finishers experiencing their final season. The girls squad, on the other hand, does not have any seniors, with only two juniors out of the seven competitors.

The way they achieved the top spots was different as well. The scores of the top five runners are considered for team results at cross-country meets, and all five of the boys runners placed in the top 11 for Lansing, with two seniors landing in the top five. The girls had one top-five finisher and three in the top 10, but the other two runners were close enough to the top of the leaderboard that they were able to fight off a great Southern Cayuga team.

Becca Lovenheim, the head coach of Lansing’s cross-country program, discussed the success of the very young girls team.

“It’s been exciting to see the girls use the season to really figure out how to build a team when you have so many young people on it,” Lovenheim said. “We’re small, but that can sometimes magnify the differences. You’re either really tight or you’re just trying to figure each other out. I think they’ve done a really beautiful job of working to build the team. When we didn’t have any seniors on that girl side, it’s been good to see the ways that each person has understood that they have something to contribute.”

The top runner for the Bobcats was freshman Kathleen Sullivan, who placed fifth. Junior Kinsley Jacobs and freshman Kelly Miller rounded out the top 10 finishers for Lansing.

As for the boys team, Lovenheim was pleased to see that the shortened season of 2020 did not impact their trajectory.

“They kind of had a different thing where we thought that 2020 was going to be the year that they sort of got to have a big breakout,” she said. “We were hoping to continue riding it through to their senior year, and obviously, it was interrupted. It’s been exciting to watch them really double down on what their goals have been and to not use the time off as an excuse and to just get as gritty as they can.”

Senior Sam Bell had a great run for the boys, placing second with over a 30-second gap between him and the third-place runner.

Showing improvements across the board is a testament to how strong the cross-country program is at Lansing, considering several teams have taken significant hits due to the pandemic. Lovenheim talked about carrying that success through a difficult year.

“I feel really grateful for the strength of our Lansing cross-country community,” she said. “We’ve always been very proud of the fact that our program celebrates growth from wherever you’re coming from. There’s a place for everyone. Also, the value of just hard work and being honest with yourself about whether you’re really giving your full effort. I think that year to year, we’ve had athletes and families who have just brought that same value.”

Lansing is looking to follow up its IAC success at the Section IV Championships on Thursday in Chenango Valley. Lovenheim sized up the competition, which features some schools that Lansing has yet to see this season.

“It’s going to be a hard-fought battle,” Lovenheim said. “Trumansburg is in Class D, so we won’t be up against them at sectionals, same thing with Southern Cayuga. So, we really are shifting our focus from the rivals that we have been up against more frequently this season to the STAC schools that are also a part of Section IV in Class C. We have not competed head-to-head with Owego and Windsor on the girls’ side and Chenango Forks on the guys’ side, Oneonta as well. That’s going to be the big battleground.”

The course that will be used at Chenango Valley is not one that Lansing ran on in the shortened 2020 season. Lovenheim discussed her expectations for the course.

“We were at Chenango Valley for pre-states [in 2019],” she said. “It’s familiar territory, especially on the boys’ side with a lot of leadership. On the girls’ side, it still remains less familiar to them. Although, Kinsley [Jacobs] has run there a lot, which is helpful. It’s a really fair cross-country course. It’s got rolling hills and it’s got places that you want to be strategic. We’ll do our homework. We have been and we’re hoping to be able to come up with a strong result.”

Lansing has its sights set on a similar outcome on Thursday, but the competition will be stiff at sectionals. All the work that Lovenheim and the teams have put in this year leads to one more big race with the opportunity to compete at the state level later this month.