Atlee had the front running and Hanover had the depth. Front running won at the Capital District Championships on Wednesday at Pole Green Park as the defending district champion Raiders of Atlee were able to fend off a valiant charge by the Hanover boys. One point ended up being the difference between the two teams with 37 points for Atlee and 38 points for Hanover.
Hanover was attempting to have a nice send off for coach Jackie Kosakowski, who was departing the next day to take an assistant college coach position in her homestate of New York. She was awarded district coach of the year as a nice consolation prize, which normally is awarded to the coach from the first place team. It was Atlee coach Jim Triemplar who suggested and conceded that Kosakowski deserved coach of the year after challenging his team in a close race.
Atlee junior Andrew Catanese was ran down by fellow junior Cody Snyder of Lee-Davis earlier in the season in the coastal division at the Maymont Festival. Catanese was determined to not have the same result happen in the district meet as he opened up on Snyder and the rest of the field after a slow first mile for a 12 second victory in a time of 16:50. Catanese continues the streak of district champions at Atlee following in the big footsteps of Ben Dejarnette. Snyder, recently slowed down by an achilles injury, mustered a second place (17:02) finish ahead of Catanese's teammate Andy Hesse (3rd, 17:03).
Atlee had three of the top four finishers with Catanese, Hesse, and Wes Steenburgh (4th, 17:15) to build enough of a cushion to make up for points lost in their fourth and fourth runner positions against a tightly packed Hanover squad. Hanover almost pulled it out with Atlee putting three ahead of their first finisher as five of the next six finishers after Steenburgh were from Hanover in Baylor Dickerson (5th, 17:28), Ryan Peterson (6th, 17:37), Lucas Nachman (8th, 17:46), James Poyer (9th, 17:53), and Michael Goolsby (10th, 18:04).
There was no drama in determing the girls champions as freshmen Bonny Turnage and her Lee-Davis teammates were runaway winners with Turnage as a 29 second winner and Lee-Davis posting a low team score of 21 points. Between the recent rainfall, wind, and unseasonably warm day, times were much slower than previous meets at Pole Green Park as Turnage can attest after running 18:17 earlier this season in a Wednesday meet on the same course. One of the top freshmen runners in the state this fall, Turnage ran a time of 19:02.
Hanover's Anna Gordon kept the Lee-Davis girls from sweeping the top four places individually in pulling away from Stephanie Cario of Lee-Davis in the final mile for a runner-up effort of 19:31. Cario took third (19:57) and quickly following her in were teammates Tiel Westbrook (4th, 20:01) and Amanda Lineberry (5th, 20:28). Lee-Davis had a top five spread of 1:18 with sophomore Melissa Davis (8th, 21:20). completing the team scoring.