GUILDERLAND — The Guilderland girls’ cross-country team is making strides in trying to become one of the top teams in the Suburban Council.

The Lady Dutch are striving to have a record above .500 this fall and are near that mark as the season comes to an end.
"Going into this year," said Guilderland Coach Dave Kosier, "we had a lot of people returning. We’re hoping to improve on our eighth-place finish at sectionals. We’ve had a good dual-meet season and a chance to focus. We can still be above .500. That’s the primary goal of ours and then step it up at the end of the season and be better than eighth at sectionals."

Kosier said that the team is hoping for a top five finish at the sectionals, that takes place at the beginning of November.
"We have a more talented team than last year," Kosier said. "We had seven or eight runners and this year we have 15 to 16 quality runners. That will help us for sectionals. At regular meets, only seven runners score and, at sectionals, it’s 10 runners."

Kosier said that he isn’t sure who the 10 runners will be.
"They will be fighting for 10 spots at the end of the season," Kosier said.

The Lady Dutch have a 5-4 record going into Tuesday’s meet with Shenendehowa and Mohonasen. Kosier expected a win over Mohonasen though the Suburban Council is unpredictable.

Stepping up
"The league is tough," Kosier said. "Everyone else in the league has stepped it up. Our goal was to improve. We had a meet on Tuesday against Saratoga, Colonie, and Niskayuna. We had a big personal record to the total team time of 27:36."
Referring to runners ranging from varsity to freshmen, he went on, "Forty-five runners cut a considerable amount of time off their personal records. I was impressed with that."

The Lady Dutch traveled to the prestigious Manhattan Invitational and finished second in their division behind Colonie. The Dutch had 21 runners entered in the meet.

Kosier has seen improvement in the runners who were able to get on the bus to head to Van Cortlandt Park in New York City for the meet.
"Last year, you had to run our course in 20:43 to be the 14th runner to go to Manhattan," the coach said. "This year, you had to run 19:17 or faster. That speaks volumes about our improvement of the entire program. We have a lot of depth and they are pushing each other. It’s pretty exciting."

Sophomore Jen Madsen has been the top runner for the Lady Dutch all season.
"She’s been on varsity for a couple of years," Kosier said. "She is consistently our number one."

Senior Courtney DeLorenzo, sophomore Emily Cure, and Shannon Doherty have been contributing points to the varsity this season. Eighth-grader Erin Mossop was competing on the freshmen team but has competed for the varsity squad as well.
"We brought her up and she’s been third or fourth in each race she was brought up," Kosier said.

Leah Cure, Emily’s sister, was brought up for the varsity meet against Colonie and was the Lady Dutch’s third runner and had a time good enough to be among the top eight Guilderland runners on the course at Tawasentha Park.
"The young guys are running great," Kosier said. "They are helping the program."

Seventh-grader Kelly Camardo and ninth-grader Hannah Scott have been running strong and could be in the 10 runners going to sectionals.
"The people sitting around those spots are worried," Kosier said. "Scott and Camardo are right there. Everybody is interchangeable. We haven’t run the same seven in a varsity race all year. We had a couple people out and some runners slide in. Now the other runners are back and they are battling back."

Lynley Joynt, a sophomore, has had been a good runner this fall. She has finished as high as fourth in a race this season.

The senior captains of the team are Elana Murray and Laura Aziz.
"They have been varsity runners throughout," Kosier said. "They have been injured and have battled back."

Doherty, and Lily Rowan, both juniors, are the team’s other captains.
"Both of them are running well," Kosier said on Friday. "They will both be running at Manhattan on the junior varsity team.
"We joke that the next seven is our second varsity team," Kosier said of his team’s depth. "All the guys have either run varsity here or could run varsity for a lot of other programs."

The team started with 60 runners this season but is now running with about 50.
"Forty-five finished the last race," Kosier said. "We had five not there that are still on the team."

With a young team, Kosier expects the Dutch to continue to make strides in the league and in Section II, one of the toughest areas for running in the country.
"We’re having a good season," Kosier said. "It actually started going back to last year. It was great going 7-4 in the Suburban Council. It was a great turnaround. But we kind of floundered at the end of last year. We had a big injury to Amanda Boccio, who was our senior captain and is now running at Ithaca [College]. Last year, we did not have enough depth."