The Bolles girls have been rather quiet lately. The Bulldogs, who have won four consecutive 2A Cross Country Finals before finishing runner-up last year to Pine Crest, have not raced in two weeks. Their last meet was the Alligator Lake XC Invitational where they defeated Chiles by three points. Saturday they will see how they fare against the northeast's best squads at the Manhattan Invitational.
One of the nation's top meets has always been on the team's radar. They've considered going in the past, but logistically it always seemed to clash with Pre-State. Last year, Coach Tony Ryan told us they had everything put together from hotels to flights to meet entries, but 24 hours before they were supposed to head to the Big Apple, Hurricane Matthew cancelled all plans. Flight refunds were issued, a portion of the hotel payment, and here they are a year later.
"I raced Van Cortlandt many years ago," said Ryan. "It's a legendary cross country course and I thought just the experience of doing it one time, trying something different, a new course, a new location, and a new city would be fun for the team."
According to our virtual meet, the Bulldogs were predicted to finish 4th behind Kingsway High School of NJ, Padua Academy of Deleware, and one of the best program's ever Fayetteville Manilus of New York. However, the Bulldogs will be without two of their top seven in Catherine Kunz (ankle injury) and Caitlin Collier, one of the best middle distance runners in the nation.
"Caitlin has a little bit of a foot injury so she won't be racing tomorrow," Ryan noted. "It's a little disappointing because I think we could have been competitive with her in the field. She's working hard in the pool and after she's okayed to run she will be put on the AlterG. We at Bolles pride ourselves with our depth so this will be an opportunity for other girls to step and hopefully make the varsity line up."
On the boy's side, Coach Mike Rivera's group are once again traveling out of state, a week after the Bulldogs finished 7th at Great American in North Carolina. The 2016 2A Cross Country Finals runner-up and top ranked team in Florida for 2017 will be lead by 2016 Foot Locker National Finalist Charles Hicks who was 10th individually in Cary with a time of 15:27.20. They will also race in the Eastern Division where Hicks is projected to finish in the top ten and the squad in a battle with Mount Tabor for a top five spot according to our virtual meet.
Keep it locked on FLRunners.com & MileSplit for complete coverage of the 2017 Manhattan Invitational!