Love of Running Motivates Finley Cross Country

A love of running motivated the boys’ and girls’ cross country teams at J. Taylor Finley Middle School this past fall. Southdown Primary School physical education teacher John Romano coached the runners.

Eighth graders Arjun Mehta (best time in mile was 6:08), Palmer Laycock (6:26) and Layne Cranz (6:28) led the boys’ team and seventh grader Kaitlyn Biancardo (7:35) was the fastest runner on the girls’ team.

“Overall, Arjun Mehta was the best runner on the team, finishing in the top three in six-of-seven meets,” Romano said. “He placed first in three meets.”

Laycock was injured early in the season, but “worked back to finish with the second best time on the team,” Romano said.

Cranz improved by leaps and bounds, besting his previous times in every race and finishing with a personal best in the mile.

Biancardo was consistently the top finisher for the Finley girls’ team, although her season was unfortunately cut short by injury that prevented her from competing in the last two meets. “She held the best times for all the girls this season,” Romano said.

Ten of the 21 runners are eligible to return next year, led by Biancardo, Nick Marino and Matthew Marsala.

“Our best accomplishments this season included seeing our personal best times improve drastically from the start of the season,” Romano said. “Although this is an individual sport, out team time improved greatly. Once the team gained confidence in their own ability to improve upon their times, the confidence was at an all-time high.”

Romano is striving to build interest in the sport and increase participation, especially among the girls.

The coach is proud of his runners. “They drag themselves to practice after long days in the classroom, complain about the warmup and still push through every workout, even when on some days the stopwatch isn’t kind,” Romano said. Some days the runs feel good and some days they don’t, but they keep logging the miles anyway. They joke around during warmups, struggle through intervals and cheer just as loud for the last finishers as they do for the first. You can catch them playing wall ball prior to or after practice.”