It was a great day to be a Roo on Thursday at the 2024 Friends Schools League Cross-Country Championship Meet. The 11 student-athletes who represented AFS at FSL Champs performed impressively by a number of measures. Not only did most record season best times over the famed (and hilly) Belmont Plateau 5k course, but their individual and team placements in the day’s races were also noteworthy.

Nearing the end of their first-ever season of cross-country, William Hale ’26 and RJ Firmin ’28 led off the day of racing for the Roos in the JV Boys competition. RJ’s 26:45 was good for 53rd place out of 72 runners while Will raced to 15th place in 21:58, the fastest finish by an AFS JV runner in the last 15 years.

Yassmine Wardigee ’27 & Ani Melzer-Surkan ’28 toed the line next for the Roos in the Varsity Girls race. Working together over the challenging course, Yassmine & Ani battled their way into the top-20 by the finish line. Yassmine’s 24:54 placed her 18th while Ani’s 25:06 was good for 19th.

In the day’s final race, the Roos sent a full 7 person team off in the Varsity Boys competition. Paced by top-10 finishes by Casey Smothers ’25 (5th in 17:50) and Roger Chen ’28 (9th in 18:06), AFS amassed 92 team points to place 4th out of the 8 teams. Jason Green ’25 (23rd in 19:18), Augusto Quiñones ’26 (26th; 19:32) and Henry Sylva ’26 (29th; 19:41) rounded out AFS’s top five scoring runners, marking the best 1 through 5 FSL Champs placement for the Roos since 1999.

Ryan Brinkerhoff ’28 (33rd; 20:13) and Niels Rush ’25 (38th; 20:49) also raced for AFS and helped set another program standard by placing 7 runners under 20:50 at FSL Champs for the first time in AFS Cross-Country history.

Congrats to all the runners and coaches Mark Carberry & Jess Neushwander on their successful season to date. The Roos next compete in the PAISAA State Championship Meet on October 26 to wrap up the season.