By David Miles, Standard Correspondent
Three Woodstock runners placed in the top 20 in last Saturday’s Vermont State Championship races at Thetford Academy. Grace Vollers finished sixth with a time of 21 minutes, 57 seconds and Sidney Pilot was 10th at 22:08 in the girls’ race. Meanwhile Matthew Bassette paced the boys with a time of 18:34, good for 19th place.
Those three all earned All Marble Valley League team honors based on their top 10 results in the league championship races in late October.
The girls claimed fourth among the 11 D-II teams competing in Thetford. Spruce Bohen was third among the Woodstock girls, finishing her career in 32nd (24:29.4). She was followed by Erica Kurash, Hannah Coates, Haily Napier and Caoimhe Lyons.
Coach Luis Bango was also pleased with the strong performances from Allison Leibly and Zoe Sanllehy in the girls challenge race.
He was likewise happy with the personal bests from Justice Bassette (20:37 for 46th) and Teddy “Eye of the Tiger” Krawczyk (20:50 and 49th place) who finished very close to one another. Sam Powers, Jason Drebber, Alden Krawczyk and Matt Frizell followed. Robert Grots finished off an injury-plagued year with an “impressive run,” according to Bango, in the challenge race.
Woodstock Union Middle School runners also had some solid results among the 340 racers in the middle school championships in Stowe. It was far less than ideal conditions in this race with snow having fallen just a few days earlier. Molly Shearer and Charlotte Tagupa led the girls, with Emily Dean, Oona Tracy, Grace Scibetta, Nora Duane, Carolyn Duane and Allison Bradley also competing.
Meanwhile Riley Shepherd was the individual champion in the boy’s race with a time of 10:19. He was joined by Wilbur Abrams, Nixon Malik, Jacob Walker, Alexander Inglis, Ethan Mello and Joe Shehan running for the boys’ team. Michael and Naomi Malik coached both teams this season.