The Haddonfield girls continued their terrific XC season Saturday by placing 3rd in the 15th annual Nike Cross Regionals at Bowdoin Park in Wappingers Falls, N.Y.
Haddonfield scored 72 points and finished just two behind Meet of Champions winner Union Catholic. North Allegheny High of Wexford, Pa., won the race with just 23 points.
The top-two teams in each of nine regions earn automatic bids to next weekend’s Nike Nationals in Portland, Ore. There are four at-large bids that go to 3rd-place teams out of the nine regions, and Haddonfield is in the running for one of those.
Junior Ava Thomas led the way for Haddonfield in 15th place in 19:41, and senior Helene Usher, junior Riley Slootsky and freshman Riley Austin ran 21st through 23rd in 19:56 through 19:58. Junior Audrey Naticchia ran 53rd in 21:00. Their team places were 9th, 11th, 12th, 13th and 28th.
The Nike series began in 2007, and Haddonfield’s 3rd-place finish is 3rd-best ever by a South Jersey school.
Kingsway was 2nd in 2017 and Cherokee won last year.
From the Backstretch by Reuben Frank 