By Ethan Harrigan – Staff Reporter

 

Jonathan Law’s boys cross country team is ready to take on the challenges of this year and run competitively against top tier schools this fall.

 

Senior captains Tyler McKenna-Hansen and Dan Wasserman lead the team with the guidance of coach Mr. Phillips. The team has less new runners than it had last year but that has not stopped them from making an impact at the Haddad Windham and Winding Trails Invitationals, a meet in Hamden and a home meet against three opponents.

 

“Our top guys are running even better than they had last year,” Phillips said.

 

The Lawmen ran back to back meets on September 27 and 28, one home and one away.

 

At Hamden’s meet on September 27, Law defeated West Haven and Hillhouse, but narrowly lost to Hamden by one point. On September 28, Law bested Lyman Hall and North Branford but lost to North Haven, at both meets four of Law’s runners had times under 20 minutes.

 

“I expect myself and the rest of the team to continue to run faster times, and as a result we should be able to beat the teams that we had close losses to earlier in the season,” Wasserman said.

 

At Winding Trails Invitational on September 22, a compilation of two seniors, three sophomores and a junior, managed to best 20 minutes. Junior Mike Loschiavo is this year’s best runner, running a 16:58 at the meet.

 

“I want to at least break 16, or get low 16 because if you get down there you’ll be top in the state,” Loschiavo said.

 

A change the team has been addressing is the loss of their strong senior runners from last year. As newer runners fit in and older runners gain momentum they hope to fill the gap.

 

“We don’t have as much of a nucleus as we had last year of faster runners, so there’s a lot of room to improve,” McKenna-Hansen said.

 

There are fewer freshman than there have been in previous years and many of them have just started to begin their running careers at Law, but they have accustomed themselves to the cross country environment.

 

”The team is really supporting and helping out,” freshman Dan McCullough said. “There are only three freshman so I have to make friends with everybody.”

 

Wasserman said the new runners have learned very quickly.

 

“It is very hard to run the distance that we run if you haven’t done it before, but they have continued to improve and are able to compete against experienced runners with no problem,” Wasserman said.