2024 Season in Review

Another cross country season has come and gone, with the lack of rain turning the flats of Van Cortlandt to nothing more than dust. While 2023 saw rain every single Saturday until Cities, 2024 saw not one drop of rain. Two new teams grabbed championships and two new individuals grabbed titles.

BOYS

Met or Exceeded Program Expectations

Bronx Science -  the boys from the Bronx finished 1-3-6-11-15 to win Cities by 45 points over 3-time defending champ Brooklyn Tech. Although lower than they would have wanted, a 12th place finish at Federations is still solid.

Hunter College Campus – Sure, they fell from 2nd to 5th this season and couldn’t even field a JV team, but when you look deeper, you’ll see why it was a successful season for the Hawks. Do you know how many boys ran in the varsity city championship both last year and this year for Hunter?  One. (Oliver Flor)  This year, Hunter had 6 boys running varsity at Cities that didn’t run varsity last year. Taking that into account, 5th place is quite impressive. Hunter had the top sophomore and the 3rd fastest freshman this season, so the future isn’t all that bleak.

Academy of American Studies (Queens) – Although they couldn’t manage to win the Queens Championship, they still recorded the highest finish in program history with a 9th place finish at the City Championship.

John Jay Campus – This is a team we didn’t even mention in the season preview and they finished 7th at Cities. They are a young team and will look to improve upon this finish in coming years.

MSIT – With a 3rd place finish at Cities, they qualified for the Federation Championships for the first time since 2018.

Underperformed in 2024

Brooklyn Tech – A runner-up finish at Cities is only underperforming by Tech standards, especially after 3 straight titles. They were very solid at 1-2, but struggled to put together a consistent 3-7.

Stuyvesant – For a team that returned 5 of 7 runners from its third place finish in 2023, this team struggled. Not a single one of those returnees ran faster in 2024 than they did in 2023 and it showed with a 4th place finish at Cities.

Curtis – This team returned all 7 runners from a 7th place finish in 2023, but could only manage a 12th place finish this year.

High School for Math, Science and Engineering – Although they did improve on their 8th place finish in 2023 to finish 6th in 2024, this season could have been much better. Their top two freshmen from 2023 didn’t return to the team in 2024, with Wren Hansen running unattached and Lex Yeung transferring to Bronx Science. This program, which contends for the Freshman championship every year, still hasn’t won a Borough Championship or finished top 4 at Cities.

Most Improved Runners

Liam Hernandez (Bronx Science) – Liam 18:31 to finish 50th at Cities in 2023. In 2024, he ran 16:52 to finish 6th and help his team win a championship.

Giuseppe Gambino (HS for Construction) – Giuseppe ran 18:50 to finish 62nd at Cities in 2023. In 2024 he ran 17:18 to finish 14th and qualify for the Federation meet as an individual.

Rookie of the Year

Umed Maru (Academy of American Studies) – His first season of cross country since giving up soccer was a total success. He broke 17 minutes to finish 7th at Cities. At Feds he finished 55th as the 3rd PSAL runner to cross the line.

Coach of the Year

Michael Mei (Bronx Science) – Mei’s Wolverines took home the City Championship in dominant fashion and also won the Sophomore championship in a similar way. He also had the top freshman in the league. With Van Cortlandt Park in their backyard, they’ll be a tough team to beat in the years to come.

GIRLS

It should be noted that in our season preview, we predicted the exact order of the top 4 teams at the City Championship.

Met or Exceeded Program Expectations

Brooklyn Tech – After not placing in the top 4 the previous two years, Brooklyn Tech rebounded to win another city championship. They also won the JV city championship, the sophomore city championship (without their top sophomore) and were 2nd in the freshman city championship. Not bad for a tiny little school with only 2,500 girls.

LaGuardia – They were only the third team this century to have girls finish 1-2 at the City Championship. Their 2nd place finish at Cities was the program’s best ever. Their top runner, Naomi Douglas, just qualified for Nike Nationals with a 5th place finish at Feds.

Bronx Science – The arrival of a Fast Freshman™ certainly helped, but this young squad finished 4th at Cities and then was the 2nd PSAL team at Feds two weeks later.

Susan Wagner – Even after graduating 4 of their top 7, this squad managed to improve upon last year’s 7th place finish with a 5th place finish in 2024. Naturally, it didn’t hurt that 4 of the top club kids on the island enrolled at Wagner this fall.

Bayside – Led by a talented top 3, Bayside’s 6th place finish might be the highest in program history.

Underperformed in 2024

Hunter – Arguably the most frustrating title defense in recent memory. Everyone knew Hunter wasn’t going to contend again, but they struggled for most of the season to even field a full varsity lineup and didn’t field a JV team at Cities. Defending City Champion Ella Cohen didn’t run cities and that dropped them all the way down to 8th place.

Stuyvesant – Even after losing only 1 of their top 7 from 2023, the program’s third place finish this year was their lowest in the post-pandemic era. Unfortunately for them, several of their runners were unable to top their performances from 2023.

James Madison – This is a group that won the Freshman city championship just two years ago. Last year they didn’t even qualify for the Championship race and this year they finished 14th.

Most Improved Runners

Gwyneth Shupp (LaGuardia) – from 91st and 26:31 in 2022 to 22nd in 21:46 to 2nd in 19:38 in 2024. Now THAT is improvement.

Charlotte Wang (Bronx Science) – The junior ran 23:13 to finish 52nd in 2023. This year she ran 20:29 to finish 8th and was big part of the reason the Lady Wolverines exceeded expectations this season.

Riley Tefft (Curtis) – The sophomore lowered her VCP PR from 23:10 to 20:00 this year.

Christina Sakellis (Bayside) – Christina ran 24:10 to finish 76th at Cities in 2023, but ran 20:55 to finish 9th in 2024.

Rookie of the Year

This was a tough call. Jackson and Rodriguez-King from Susan Wagner and Wajid from Dewitt Clinton could have easily won this award as they were all spectacular. But they’re hardly rookies. So the winner is… Evelyn Craig (Brooklyn Tech) – She ran fast AND helped her team to a city championship. Without her arrival at Tech, it’s unlikely Tech would’ve finished higher than 4th.

Comeback runners of the Year

Anya Eder (LaGuardia) – Eder didn’t run at all in 2023 and was a big part of why LaGuardia had the successful season they did. She finished 24th at Cities in 21:56

Honora Muratori (Stuyvesant) – Muratori ran one race in 2023, a 25:25 4K. She came back strong this season, clocking a season best of 21:32 in the 5K.

Danielle Andrews (Brooklyn Tech) – Andrews was a Fast Freshman™, but struggled with injuries since then. This season, she made a blazing return. At the Manhattan Invite she ran 17:14 for the 4k before injury/sickness took her down again.

Coach of the Year

Mike Boccuzza (Bayside) – The Bayside girls recorded a 6th place finish at Cities this season, down from 14th in 2023 and 20th in 2022. His top runner (Sakellis) finished top ten in the City and his 2nd runner (Ryan) was 17th, but recorded the 4th fastest 1000m finish of any runner in the race, indicating the great shape she was in.

Coming Soon… A way-to-early 2025 preview.