By Harry Fisher – Sports Editor

And they’re off!

Two weeks into the fall sports season, the Jonathan Law boys and girls cross country teams are off to an incredible start. These teams have put in a tremendous amount of time practicing to get better.

Coach Phillips, Coach Schulte, and Coach Loschiavo have been supporting these student-athletes daily after school and on the weekends. These veterans know the ins and outs of every course, and are ready to develop and motivate all runners. 

All-State runners Liam Fedigan and Claire Moulton have hit the ground running. They showed their dominance on the Sheehan course last week and are ready to lead the team to victory in future Invitationals.  

In the first meet of the season at Sheehan, the top five Law runners for the boys team were Fedigan, who ran a 17:19, Jake Ackley at 20:51, Matt Berendt at 21:51, Dallas Fasanella 21:28, and then Tanner Matchett at 22:40. 

The Law girls came out strong and were the largest girls cross country team in attendance at Sheehan last week. Moulton finished second overall.

Fedigan has been a leader for the boys for three years now. He has had two terrific All-State seasons, and he looks to have an outstanding senior year. He passes his work ethic on to the other runners and is constantly working to motivate the team to try their best.

Coach Phillips is excited to see what the boys team can accomplish this season.

“I have always looked forward to the beginning of the season,” Phillips said. “The excitement for a cross country runner when his goals are met. As we work toward the league in-state meets, our daily practices contain hill work out and finishing strong at the end of a race with good form. We always talk about working together to lower our time. I have always said that if we can get five people under 20 minutes we would be competitive with most teams and we are getting close to that point already. We are led by Liam Fedigan, but already seeing lots of improvement by Jake Ackley, Matt Berendt, and Dallas Fasanella along with Tanner Matchett in our top five.”

Moulton also set high standards for the team and relentlessly encourages everyone to run their best race. 

“I’m very excited for the season and happy to be back together with the team,” Moulton said. “Something I want to accomplish this year is getting my time to sub-21 (minutes) and to make the First Team SCC this year, which I hope to do considering freshman year I made SCC honors. Then last year I made the SCC second team. Making the first team would definitely be fun.”

Coach Loschiavo has high hopes for the teams as well.

“I am so excited to see for the season to start,” Loschiavo said. “I feel like we have a great team this year and a special group of runners that are eager to run and strive for success whether inside or outside of the classroom. One thing I want to accomplish this year is to have every runner at least run better than they did at the start of the season and watch them progress. I think some of the keys that might help law push toward SCCs and states is working every day to get better and better and to put in work even outside of regular practices. I feel like this will be better for you in the long run and make the team have a better result at SCCs and states. The number one thing I would like to accomplish this year is I would love is to see is our top 7 run under 21 minutes. The reason for this makes us more competitive when we get to the bigger state and SCC meets.”

The team is motivated to compete and is on pace to make its mark in the Connecticut cross country scene.