Meet 2: vs. Parish Hill
The Woodstock Academy cross-country teams had to wait a little bit but finally got their first two meets of the season in.
The Centaurs boys and girls teams both scored victories over Ellis Tech on Wednesday and Parish Hill on Saturday.
Senior Ethan Aspiras picked up where he left off.
Aspiras, who had been running on his own early in training, returned to the team a couple of weeks before the first meet and coach Peter Lusa has been impressed with what he has seen.
“Ethan is very prepared to run this season. He has a level of focus that makes training him easier than the other athletes. His commitment to the sport is pretty serious,” Lusa said.
That was evident in the first two meets.
Aspiras finished first individually in 18 minutes, 17 seconds to lead the Centaurs to a 19-44 win over Ellis Tech.
The race was the first-ever run on the Centaurs new South Campus course.
New courses will be the rule rather than the exception this season.
The Centaurs do not face their usual opponents such as East Lyme, Norwich Free Academy and Fitch but rather will keep it regional.
It has made it difficult for Lusa to judge just where Aspiras is this season compared to last when he won the Eastern Connecticut Conference individual title.
“One of the things making this season difficult to auge is the number of new courses that we will be running on. Even our own “home” course is changed, so judging Ethan from last fall to this is difficult,” Lusa said.
Another thing missing.
The events that cross-country runners covet.
“It would be a lot more fun if we had big meets and invitationals to let him loose on. I feel that there is a level of disappointment in him about the loss of the bigger meets, like ECC’s, States and New England’s,” Lusa said.
Ellis Tech’s Jacob Reed did sneak into the top five, finishing second , just 14 seconds behind Aspiras.
Woodstock Academy’s Vince Bastura (20:18) finished third with Centaur teammates Seamus Lippy and Max Auker tying for fourth in 21:05.
The Centaurs raised their record to 2-0 Saturday with a 15-50 win over the Pirates in Chaplin.
Aspiras won the race by over a minute and a half, finishing in 17:42.
“Ethan is having fun being “the guy” on the team that everyone wants to talk about and admire, to some extent. We had been practicing for a couple of weeks and when he finally came to his first practice, the kids from every group were fired up and chatting about Ethan being there. It was nice to witness,” Lusa said.
Bastura (19:14) was second followed by Auker (20:11), Lippy (20:17) and Adam Thompson (20:22).