HS Athletics recap: August 22-29

The cross country teams ran the Green Hill Invitational, volleyball faced Donelson Christian and Davidson Academy, veteran and new mountain bikers rolled through Chickasaw Trace Trails for first race, and the girls soccer team faced Valor College Prep and Donelson Christian Academy in its season openers.
Cross Country 
In near total darkness, the cross country teams officially opened their seasons at the Green Hill Invitational at the Hermitage on Saturday.

We have a lot of newcomers to the team, and they were tasked with being our first runners of the evening in a combined boys and girls JV race. The boys' JV were led by Dylan Omary and Meade Kelley in 7th and 8th place, which, combined with Morgan McAteer, Chase Ginsberg, and Oren Schwartz in the top 30, helped the Tigers place 2nd as a team! Kudos to our first-timers on their strong finishes - Yother Phillips, Charlie Brackett, Kireet Annam, Judd Lane, Marcelo Saoud, Knox Followill, and Rishav Reddy. On the girls side, the newcomers duo of Ella Apthorp and Kenzie Miller were first to cross in 10th and 11th place after 3.1miles of running side by side. Next to finish was fighting freshmen Emmeline Self, completing her first 5k since knee surgery earlier this summer, followed by 5k first timers Mia Seltzer, Imaan Salad, and Billie Forrester who all gave tremendous efforts! 

The varsity girls were next to take to the line and what a splendid and sparkling sight it was! 9 Tigers, coated in a robust amount of glitter, ready to battle it out in the dark! Madeleine Wiseman raced confidently with the front of the pack from start to finish, crossing in 11th place in a time of 20:48. Fellow juniors Norah Harrison and Jackie Seale kicked it across the finish line next in 31st & 33rd places, both running over a minute faster than they did in their first 5k last season! Freshman Sydney Lasher and junior Julia Young held their positions well in the middle of the field to finish 54th & 59th and round out our top 5 scorers for the night. Adelaide Ritter and Sadie Mae Bass were our 6th & 7th finishers followed by Lyla Ross and Laura Fonseca. In a competitive field of 17 scoring teams, the USN girls placed 6th with a team average of 22:56 - one minute faster than their team average last year at this time!

The boys' varsity competed in the last race of the evening, aware that the darkness would affect their ability to gauge speed and distance, so the instructions were simply to compete with high effort. And compete they did. Our top 4 - Griffin Davidson, Drew Zwerner, Caleb Friefeld, and Jack Fruin - positioned themselves near the front of the race and moved up and fought for every spot - eventually finishing in 6th/8th/11th/14th, respectively. With James and Caleb Little battling for our fifth/sixth spot in the 30s, the team scored well enough to take 2nd overall in a field of 22 teams. There were also notable performances from Mario Tedeschi and Sean Franke in their first varsity races, and Gryffin Anderson who paced with Sean the whole way. 

Full meet results are viewable here. Note, we have several JV runners who are not listed in these results due to the next race starting before they finished. We are working with the meet director and timing company to get this fixed. 

It was an exciting late-night start to the season and we look forward to more fast racing in two weeks' timewhen our Tiger's head to AL for the Chickasaw Trails Invitational.  

Volleyball
The Tigers have played two district matches to start the season and have pushed the match to four sets, but could only take one set from Donelson Christian and Davidson Academy, coming up just short in the fourth set of each match to force a fifth set. The JV team won both of its matches against the same opponents to start the season on a strong note.  Both teams also competed in the Oakland Tournament and brought home Bronze Division championships. The tournament featured over 30 teams in each pool and the Tigers 

Mountain Biking
Sixteen HS bikers started and finished, and our most experienced riders competed in the JV2 category for 2 laps. Adeline Miller posted consistent 25/26-minute laps, good for 10th place in the JV2 Girls. Avery Savona, Charlie Blau, Aidan Harris, Caden Carrabba and Seth Hauser all were placed in the Boys JV2, with Savona riding our fastest 2 laps in 43:27 total. Charlie Blau was less than a minute behind and posted the team’s fastest single lap of the day at 21:11, but suffered a seat post malfunction which slowed his 2nd lap down. Harris, Hauser and Carrabba all posted strong 22 to 24 minute laps. Basil Broemel along with freshman Allen Chen and Charlie McNulty were placed in the JV3 category and did 1 or 2 laps, with freshman Chen posting an amazing 21:45 first lap before slowing on the second, and McNulty riding to our team’s only “negative split” 2 lap race of the day (a 2nd lap was faster than the first) 
 
In the girls JV3 race we had 7 USN jerseys dominating the start line, with Elsa Absi and Sylvie Mackler riding 2 laps to a photo finish alongside each other, finishing in 53 minutes and only 0.05 seconds apart at the finish line, gaining a 10th and 11th place finishes. Claire Dehner and Brianna Castro also pulled out 2 strong 29 minute laps on average. Asha Guha, Suzie Zhao and brand new rider Arianna Washington did one lap in 34-36 minutes each. Even without any seniors this young but deep HS squad placed 20th out of 29 teams, with team points coming from Miller, Absi, Mackler and Savona.

Girls Soccer
The girls soccer team started the season with some tough competition as they faced two teams with some familiarity with the postseason last year. The first game was against Valor College Prep and the Tigers competed well in the first half, but ran out of steam in the second half and gave up a final score of 5-0. 

The Tigers hosted DCA on Tuesday in their first district and they possessed well in the first half, but surrendered one goal on a breakaway. Ansley Martin ‘27 made some nice saves early to keep the score close. The Wildcats continued to attack on the counter of solid USN possession and made good on each of their attempts in the second half. While the midfield continued to possess the ball, the Tigers couldn’t connect on their opportunities late in the game as Wildcats defense bottled up the speedy forwards Johnsie Dawkins ‘28 and Laila Fierce ‘27. 
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