Unionville senior Courtney Smith entered her third year of XC with a resume that has been growing season-to-season. As a sophomore, she was 4th in AAA at Hershey. Then last year, she won her first state title, setting a meet and course record. In the winter, she broke the state record in the 3000 meter run, but had to settle for 2nd place. She more than made up for it by twice outsprinting the same competitor, first for 3rd place in the Girls 3000 Invitational at the Penn Relays, and then in the finals of the AAA 3200 meter run at the PIAA State Championships. Smith led her team to a qualifying spot and trip to NXN after winning the Northeast Regional. But in the first 1000 meters in Portland, she fell and was spiked. She recovered for 10th. Then during indoor, and despite an injury, Smith captured 3rd in an incredible 3000 at PTFCA Indoor States, and anchored her DMR to a state title. Two weeks later, she anchored that DMR to a 6th place finish in the New Balance Nationals Indoor champs in a time ten seconds better than their state title... and anchored the 4xmile the next day to a 3rd place finish - both earning all-American recognition. But the injury endured. She went through PT, and returned to racing at the Henderson Invitational on May 2nd. Beyond happy to be back.
Outdoor Track:
Indoor Track:
Cross Country:
Entry #1 9/2 | Entry #2 9/30 | Entry #3 10/7 | Entry #4 10/14 | Entry #5 10/28 | Entry #6 11/10 | Entry #7 12/5 | Entry #8 12/10
Courtney Smith
SR. Unionville HS, PA
Journal Entry #1 (September 2, 2013)
A Team Kind of Summer
Hi everyone! My name is Courtney Smith and I am a senior at Unionville High School. This season is my third for cross country and I'm so excited to have a great last year! Here is an update on some fun things that we have done so far this season.
This summer we had a fundraiser at a local restaurant to raise money for the Unionville booster club. The restaurant agreed to donate some of our bill to the team for every table that showed a coupon. Not everyone could make it that day or at the same time but we tried to plan to meet up together and reserved a kids' table and an adults' table.
It was a lot of fun and I think the waiter probably figured out we were runners by how much water we drank. By the time she brought our bread, we had all already finished our waters so we decided to ask for a big pitcher to keep on the table (we finished the first pitcher by the time our food came:).
Picture photo credits to my mom and from left to right is Bridgette, Elizabeth, me, Steve, Emily, and Matt. It was nice to see Steve before he left for Williams last Sunday!
After a scrimmage that same week we had a team sleepover at Emily's and made tie dye t-shirts. It was great team bonding and a nice celebration before school started. A bunch of us wore the shirts to school on Friday and we took a picture at the sleepover and in the cross country homeroom.
Our first meet was Oakbourne relays this past Friday, which always gets us super pumped for the season and back into the swing of racing. It was a really well run race and it was cool that a local guys team (Henderson) won for the boys as well. The course was really muddy, so we had a lot of fun and all four of our relays as well as our JV did really well!
School also started for us this past week, and it feels weird to finally be a senior! This month I'm already starting college official visits and I can't wait to get to see the schools and the teams again! I have all of my visits in September so it's going to be a very busy next few weeks, but I'll update you on all my visits once I finish the last one, and hopefully know for sure which school is the best one for me!
The last fun thing we did was went to Lily's sushi in Kennett after practice on Saturday to see Abby Dorrell before she goes off to college. It's sad to realize we won't have last year's seniors on the team this year, but we have already bonded with the new girls and we are ready to have an awesome year!
Good luck to everyone in PA this year in all the early season meets!
Courtney
