NXN follow-up: Somewhat lost in the glow of Fayetteville-Manlius' fifth straight national title at the
Nike Cross Nationals was the staggering improvement shown by junior Christie Rutledge, who placed second in the Portland, Ore., race to pace the Hornets to a meet-record 27 points.
Rutledge led for more than half the race before superb Texan Rachel Johnson took over and won in 18:18.6. Rutledge’s 18:21.4 was enough to hold off the rest of the elite field by nearly 200 meters.
A year ago, Rutledge was F-M’s No. 7 runner -- on the junior varsity.
“She’s a Cinderella story of monumental proportions,” coach Bill Aris told The Post-Standard. “She worked, she stayed healthy, she put in the time, she improved, and bang, it all paid off.”
Said Rutledge: “I gave everything I had. I got every bit out of myself that I could.”
Site notes: A few updates regarding this website and the related sport-specific sites we maintain:
(1) I'm running behind on freshening up elements on RoadToGlensFalls.com, our boys basketball portal, but the scores and schedules (courtesy of MaxPreps) are for the most part already up and running. I'll be working on updates to the other elements these next few days.
(2) Our first crack at doing a comparable site for girls basketball will be rolled out right after the boys updates are down. We hope RoadToTroy.com will be the first place readers turn to find their girls hoops info.
(3) One of the items I look forward to adding to the boys basketball site is a link to The View From Centercourt blog, which is dedicated to following the action in Section 6 and the Monsignor Martin Association.
Take a look at it. He has very good insight into the Western New York scene, making for a nice complement to the work from The Buffalo News. You Buffalonians are fortunate to have such great resources.
(4) I've begun including Patch.com reports from Nassau and Suffolk counties on our media headlines page, which provides quick links to the latest high school sports news from about 40 outlets.
Patch.com is the hyper-local news product being rolled out across the country rather methodically by AOL. The jury's still out on whether it will ultimately succeed, but the Patch.com strategy has included hiring good newsmen (and women)as local editors.
(5) Tom Doherty has sent along his final fall rankings of Rockland County sports teams. As always, it's entertaining stuff, so check it out.
