TFX Results | DyeStat Elite

By John Nepolitan

For the past nine months Christian Brothers Academy (Lincroft, NJ) has been known as the 2011 Nike Cross National Champions. Today they became the “defending” national champions and began the journey to retaining that title by dominating the field at the Bowdoin Classic at Bowdoin Park (Wappingers Falls, NY).

CBA looked as good as ever, going 1-2-3-4-5 to score a perfect 15 points. Along the way they took down the team-average course record, running 16:14.64 breaking the 16:15.2 of the great Fayetteville Manlius (NY) team from 2004.

Today, through the opening mile, Northport (NY) tried to mix it up with the New Jersey team. But by the mile mark, CBA had control with its entire team in the top 15. By the time the runners returned to the finish-area field with about 1000 meters to go, Billy Bragg was leading a 1-2-3-4 sweep for CBA and it came down to Fran Bogan to run down two runners to nail down the sweep.

The bad news for teams looking to challenge this juggernaut: CBA ran without expected fourth man Aaron Libertore, who sat out with a slight illness. He is expected to be back in action next week when the Colts travel south for the Great American Meet in North Carolina and was training on the course today. When the final scores were released, CBA had its perfect score of 15 with Pembroke (Ma) in second with 107 and New York #2-ranked Northport in third with 112.

In the girls race, Miller Place had two runners in the top three early, with Gianna Frontera (Newburgh, NY) – the New York indoor 3000 runner-up last March – sitting right behind through the mile. When the runners came back with 1000 meters to go, Frontera had taken over the lead and would win in 19:15.3, with teammate Kalleigh Forrester in second crossing in 19:18.7. Miller Place (NY) would take the team title, scoring 134 points to win over Weston (Ma) who scored 147 – just ahead of New York #4 Guilderland and #11 St. Anthony’s, each with 148 points.