By:Scott Brinton
Dressed in maroon-and-gray T-shirts and bright red shorts, the girls ran in a tight pack on the school's rubbery track. Those who were squeezed in the middle couldn't see much of what lay ahead of them, so the girls in front had to yell back which direction their teammates should weave before they hit one of the dozens of other people sharing the track that day.
The game builds "team unity," said cross-country coach Dave Frazer.
Mepham High held its annual charity walk-a-thon at the track on Friday, and the red-clay oval became a giant human obstacle course for the cross-country team, as the girls circled it again and again. One misstep could have sent the 15-member squad toppling to the ground. Ankles might have been sprained - and the team's hopes of repeating as county champions seriously jeopardized. But the girls kept their balance, hurtling forward in perfect formation.
The next day, the Mepham squad won the Conference II Championship race on a rough, 3.1-mile course at Bethpage State Park. Three Mepham runners finished in the top 10, including the second- and third-place competitors.
This Saturday, when the girls run in the county championship at Bethpage, all of Nassau will be gunning for them. They're favored to win. In 2002 and 2003, they took the title with a team full of freshmen and sophomores. Winning two straight championships "definitely puts a bull's eye on their back," said Frazer, who graduated from Mepham in 1994 and was a state champion in the mile.
A tight field
Juniors now comprise most of the Mepham squad, and the girls have been running times that are better than their best performances in previous years. But Mepham suffered an early-season loss to cross-town rival Bellmore-JFK, giving the girls a 13-1 record in dual meets and, as of last Friday, leaving them second in the county standings.
In the Conference II Championship, Kennedy came in a close second behind Mepham, also placing three runners in the top 10. Among them was the race winner, Maegan Krifchin, who scorched the course in 19 minutes, 18 seconds, 38 seconds ahead of Mepham's Courtney Kelly, who took second.
In addition to Kennedy, a long list of solid teams are also hunting a county crown, including nearby East Meadow High, which produced Nassau's individual cross-country champion in 2003 and now boasts another of the county's best prospects, Kinjal Parikh, who won the Conference I Championship on Saturday.
Mepham wants to qualify again for the state meet, which will be held at a park outside Corning. To do that, the team must win the county championship or place first in its class. So, if the squad were to lose the overall title, it would have to beat Bellmore-JFK to move on to states. In short, the pressure's on.
The girls, however, say they're up for the challenge. Jessica Restivo, a perky senior who took seventh at the conference championship, said, "We've all worked really hard. We're going to give it our all. There's always pressure. It's good pressure. We do really well under pressure as a team."
To win at the county championship, the squad is counting on stellar performances by its top runners, Kelly and Dawn Leavy, a petite, ego-free junior. Leavy, who finished third in the county championship last fall, suffered a serious knee injury that kept her out of the winter and most of the spring track seasons. But with physical therapy and strength training, she has regained her form, again placing her among the county's elite runners, and in contention for Nassau's individual crown.
Kelly is also clearly running tough. Together, she and Leavy make a formidable duo that, if all goes right, should propel the Lady Pirates to a third Nassau championship and on to states.
This season, Leavy has run a 19:22 5K, and Kelly clocked her best time at the conference championship, 19:56. Coach Frazer hopes Leavy will finish the county championship race in under 19 minutes. If she can pull off that feat, and seven of her teammates can break 21:30, the squad stands an excellent shot at a three-peat at counties.
A team of friends
Winning, however, is secondary for the Mepham squad, team members said. Above all else, the girls are friends. Restivo and Leavy said squad members think of one another more as family than as fellow athletes. They run as a team, yes, but they also hang out, study and eat together.
Before many meets, the girls' and boys' cross-country teams share big pasta dinners at the home of Barbara Frazer, coach Frazer's mother. Barbara, who is known affectionately as "Mamma Frazer" among squad members, lives less than a mile from Mepham, in North Bellmore. On her birthday each October, Mepham's cross-country teams run to her house and serenade her with "Happy Birthday." At Christmas, they sing carols.
Last Friday, the girls ran to a point in North Bellmore after their track workout and held an annual ceremony. The seniors and other upperclassmen handed out neon cloth bracelets to squad members and praised their accomplishments this season. The team tradition dates back more than two decades. The girls proudly wear their bracelets on their wrists or in their hair at the county championship.
Team members also say that academics come before athletics. In 2003, the team grade point average was 96, and the entire squad was named to the New York state Scholar-Athletes list. The team is expected to achieve the same honor this year.
Frazer and his co-coach, Robert Ostroff, want to ensure that the squad's winning ways continue well into the future. Like Frazer, Ostroff is a Mepham alumnus, and served as Frazer's cross-country captain for a year. Back then, the Mepham boys' squad was Nassau's team to beat, capturing four straight county cross-country championships under legendary coach Paul Limmer.
"It means a lot to us to come back and coach and continue the traditions" at Mepham, Ostroff said.
Restivo said that when she heads to college next year, at Marist, Loyola or the University of Scranton, she hopes to find a group of close friends like she did on Mepham's cross-country team.
Without doubt, she said, "I'm going to miss them."
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