The Emmaus girls came into the season with two goals in mind. To repeat as state champions in AAA, and to improve on their 5th place finish at the Nike Cross Northeast regionals and earn a trip to Portland for the NXN championships.
Goal one was accomplished in great fashion, as Emmaus dominated the state race to win by 59 points.
Goal #2 didn't exactly go as planned, although one member of the team did earn a trip to Portland.
Everyone knows that the sport has its risks. Overuse injuries can occur. Legs get tired at exactly the wrong time. Accidental knockdowns can happen in a race, throwing an athlete off stride in many ways. But it's the random accident that most confounds everyone, and leaves a little bit of a 'what if' on the season.
The Emmaus girls were about 30 seconds from taking a completely healthy team to the NXN Regional on November 29th in Wappinger Falls, New York. They had geared their season and their training to the race. And it was their 4th time on the course in two years, having run the pre-NXN race both years, in addition to the 2007 regional meet.
But nine days after their repeat performance in the state championships, it was one of those freak injuries that ultimately undid their season.
According to head coach Dan Wessner, senior Melissa Meade was finishing a regular run with her teammates, and was literally 30 seconds from finishing. "She took a misstep coming down a little incline, and severely sprained her ankle." Three ligaments were apparently affected, and the swelling was immediate and severe. It was the same ankle she had sprained in the summer. She had worn a brace and been taped, but had shed those aids with no problems during the heart of the season.
Not only were there no problems, Meade even had moved into the 3rd spot on the team on occasion, making the squad even more formidable than they had been in 2007. At the very least, she had contributed to a tight top five compression off fellow senior Lindsey Graybill, who was running faster than in 2007, along with Amanda, Brianna and Christina Faust.
So expectations had been extremely high for the NXN Regional.
Meade spent two weeks in the pool to allow the ankle as much recovery as possible. Because she was on a treatment schedule, she was not able to make practice every day during the ensuing three weeks, but, according to Wessner, the team did everything they could to keep her involved and keep her spirits up.
Meade again donned the brace and made some attempts at running prior to NXN.
But the first 1.5 miles of the Wappinger Falls course is up. Racing a course like that is normally tough just in spikes. Add an ankle brace, and it must be nearly impossible. Graybill said the team was impressed that Meade even made the attempt. "I was so proud of how she did," said Graybill. "A gutty performance" is how Wessner labeled it. "She was less than 50%, but she was game."
The team would finish 5th for the second year in a row.
The silver lining in the day turned out to be the 8th place performance by Graybill, who earned one of the five individual slots to NXN – the first year that opportunity has been available.
As it was, they had to wait a very long time to learn that bit of good news. Graybill had almost convinced herself that she couldn't possibly make the cut. She had run the uphill half of the race 11 seconds faster than the downhill portion, and had been passed by two runners over the closing section. To make matters more confusing, the top two teams both had blue uniforms, so Wessner and others could not really be sure who and who hadn't been ahead of Lindsey.
When the announcement finally came, and they had almost resigned themselves to Graybill finishing one spot out of the trip – which would have fit right into how the day had been going – the Emmaus team broke into cheers.
"It took the edge off the day," said Wessner.
"I was sad and happy at the same time," shared Graybill. "It truly was bittersweet."
Wessner says that as he looks back on the season, he is really impressed with how this team has improved each of the past three years. "They're so supportive of each other. So often, you wonder if girls will improve. But this year they had a better team, a better season, they were better runners, and they did better races. How could you not be proud?"
The Final k: Features stories from the 2008 PA Cross Country season by PennTrackXC