Brandywine Girls Join Sallies in County Winners’ Circle

 

By Chuck Durante

 

            Brandywine’s girls won the New Castle County cross country championship with a team so deep that some of its runners won’t even make the varsity next year. 

 

            Missing three of its five best runners from last year — including a state champion — Brandywine ended Ursuline’s two-year dominion behind freshman Jenn Kutney, who obliterated the record at ash-hued White Clay Creek by 38 seconds.

 

            Salesianum dominated the boys meet behind the remarkable Eric Eckstrand and a tight pack of self-starters that placed five in the top 16 of one of the fastest fields in history.

 

            Kutney, not even the best on her 8th grade team last year at St. Mary Magdalen, took the lead a half-mile into the 3.1-mile course before smashing the course record of two-time state champion Lauren Carr.  She never even heard footsteps, finishing 55 seconds ahead of runner-up Jill Brobst of Concord.  When Alison Taylor, Kimmi Lopata, Janet Prost and Brandi Steinberg followed Kutney into the top 20, Brandywine’s first county championship was secured.

 

            During Michele Lucey Flanagan’s eight years as coach, Brandywine has become a beehive of cross country.  Almost daily, nearly 60 boys and girls ferry themselves across the county to practice at Brandywine Creek State Park.  “When Michele came, the team had seven boys and two girls,” says her assistant, Don Wood.

 

            This year, Brandywine lost three of its best veterans to injury.  Division I champion Abby Nerlinger tore her anterior cruciate ligament, and Heather Moser and Christine Noelke were also disabled.  This only gave opportunity to young teammates.  Prost is the only senior in a lineup with three freshmen and two sophomores.  “All seven runners had personal bests.  We couldn’t have asked for anything more,” said Flanagan, whose boys team, led by Mike Sadowsky, finished fourth.

 

            Yesterday’s victory may have a surprise, but Brandywine will bear the role of favorites in 1999, returning six of its varsity seven, plus the injured three, and three of yesterday’s top four junior varsity finishers.

 

            Eckstrand, fourth in last year’s county meet, has been untouchable this year.  Defending state champion Pat Riley of St. Mark’s is running even better this fall, yet keeps trailing the Salesianum junior. “Eric’s a tremendous runner.  He deserves everything he gets,” says Riley.

 

            Salesianum continued its seemingly metronomic march to a 26th state championship in 30 years.  “We’re kind of a self-directed team,” says senior Joe Gioffre.  “Our JV is so good that we all run in a pack.  After Eric, we have no idea who is going to be there.”  Yesterday, Charlie Dielmann, Gioffre, Andrew Levine and Kevin Winchell clogged the top 16 behind Eckstrand.  Since an uneven performance in their own invitational last month, the Sals have been superb.  Their principal disappointment was the inability to run in the Eastern Regional meet in New York, which failed to get itself sanction in time for Delaware runners to compete.

 

            Erin Hussey’s 12th place finish for A.I. du Pont made her the first five-time All-County runner in history.  Morgan Scoville’s third place was St. Andrew’s best ever. Brian Lee paced Wilmington Christian to a school-best fourth place.  The boys meet was the fastest ever.  Delcastle’s James O’Neill finished 21st with a time that would have placed him fifth last year.