South Side runs to county title

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The high school cross-country careers of South Side’s Avery Brull and Olivia Duca came full circle April 17 when seniors led the Cyclones to the Nassau Class II championship by placing fourth and fifth, respectively, over the 5K course at Eisenhower Park.

Brull and Duca were among South Side’s top 5 finishers as freshman in 2017 when it last captured a county crown. Both are year-round runners who’ll compete at the college level. Sophomore Cameron Coletti and freshmen Claire Bohan and Morgan McKenna rounded out the team scoring at Eisenhower to join the seniors with All-County performances.

“It was great to see Avery and Olivia bookend their careers with county titles,” coach Chris Webster said. “We knew it was going to be a tight race with Manhasset and Calhoun as the strongest contenders. I liked what I saw from our girls in warmups and they really ran well.”

Webster said Brull, bound for Cornell University, is a tireless worker who he sometimes has to ask to not push herself too hard. “Avery’s a machine,” he said. “She likes to go out assertively and is a smart runner. She ran a strong, consistent race.” Brull finished the county meet in 19 minutes, 39.12 seconds.

Ten seconds behind Brull was the Boston University-bound Duca, a former state qualifier who battled injury as a junior and hadn’t run competitively in over a year. “Olivia slowly built up her stamina and had a great finish,” Webster said.

Coletti is another year-round runner who was in South Side’s top 5 as a freshman in the fall of 2019. She placed 10th overall at Eisenhower with a time of 19:56.11. “She’s been on the rise since joining the team last season and is so focused on setting goals for herself,” Webster said.

Bohan and McKenna both set personal bests by large margins in their first county race, which helped the Cyclones pull away from runner-up Calhoun and third-place Manhasset. Bohan finished 19th in 21:28.50, shaving an incredible 90 seconds off her previous fastest time, and McKenna (25th in 22:00.38) improved by 54 seconds.

“Claire is a talented runner and she was just on fire,” Webster said of Bohan. “To PR by 90 seconds is amazing.”

McKenna never ran a cross-country race before March. “She learned how to pace herself and race,” Webster said.

Freshman Emma Sitterly and sophomore Olivia Scalere were also keys to South Side’s success and helped it capture the Conference III title with a 13-0 regular-season mark. They placed 31st and 34th, respectively, in the county meet.

“There’s a fine line between getting the kids psyched up and ready and not putting too much pressure on them,” Webster said.