By TONY BELLISSIMO
The Lady Jets, who are undefeated since 2000, also had four of the top 27 finishers in the Nassau championship/state qualifier race at Bethpage State Park on the first of November and saw senior Cara Mattson advance to the state meet for a second year in a row.
"We had an amazing group of girls," Coach Steve Josepher said. "One of the goals was to win the conference championship and they really had to work for it. We beat Syosset by only two points."
Syosset won the Conference I postseason championship meet, but East Meadow didn't force the issue. The Lady Jets ran in a pack and had six runners finish from 28th to 33rd place, within 10 seconds of each other. "The philosophy was with the county race coming up a week later, I wanted to give the girls every opportunity to finish as strong as they could by leaving as much in their tanks as possible," Josepher said.
Mattson, in her third varsity campaign, was the team's top finisher in the county meet with a time of 20 minutes, 16.6 seconds. She was 20th overall. It brought her All-County honors for a second straight season and led to a return trip to the state meet, which was held at Sunken Meadow State Park in Suffolk on Nov. 8. Mattson placed 64th in the state. "Cara really came on strong down the stretch and had her best race of the year in the state meet," Josepher said. "She didn't get much running done over the summer because she wasn't 100 percent healthy, but once she felt better she ran great."
Junior Theresa Park and senior Priya Patel just missed being All-County. They finished 22nd and 23rd, respectively, just four-tenths of a second apart. Park, a first-year competitor, crossed the line in 20:20.3, setting a new personal best in the process. Patel, a captain along with Mattson and a four-year runner, finished in 20:20.7. "Theresa ran as I hoped," Josepher said. "She's a fierce competitor and I'm expecting big things from her next fall."
Junior Jennifer Flores, who was seventh in the county a year ago, battled a sore calf this fall but still managed to place 27th in Nassau in 20:35.7. "Jen pushed as hard as she could," Josepher said.
Junior Valerie Sanders (21:25.0) was East Meadow's fifth and final scorer in the county meet. Junior Helen Park, twin sister of Theresa, was next in 21:29.5. The Parks, Patel, Flores and Sanders all earned All-Division honors. Additional contributions were made by senior Sara Alpert, junior Elsa Echeverry and freshman Nilam Patel.
Comments about this story? TBellissimo@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 204.
