The two Cambridge teams:
Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School:
* Isak Prellner, grade 11
* Ethan Rothenberg, grade 10
* Pilli Cruz-De Jesus, grade 10
* Walter Ditrani, grade 12
* Jeffrey Chen, grade 10
Cambridge Street Upper School (all 7th graders)
* Keegan Harkavy
* Harlan Altepeter
* Nicolena Capello
* Alex Rosenberg
The CRLS kids won first in JV. Apart from Isak, the high school kids have been training for one month; prior to that, some of them did a couple of introductory park or street-Os we put on in the fall, but that's it. They didn't start woods orienteering or serious training until a month ago. They are all on the high school track team and some ran on the cross-country team. Isak did a great job teaching them, and deserves a lot of credit for bringing new kids into the sport and helping them get to this level so quickly, with trainings a couple times a week for 4 weeks. He contributed a lot to junior orienteering! Ethan was 5th in the sprint and 4th on Saturday; he lost his epunch today and we hadn't told him ahead of time that he should just continue and punch his map. So he DNFed. Walter was 4th today, 9th yesterday and 14th (of 25) in the sprint. Jeffrey didn't finish the sprint or the course yesterday (he was injured yesterday) but he rallied today and came in 5th. I think this is pretty impressive.
The middle school kids all came out of the school elective I taught last year when they were in 6th grade. Keegan is my neighbor, and had done a little more orienteering with me, but not really any in the deep woods - mostly park-Os and corn maze O :-)
Keegan won the sprint and today's race, and came in second yesterday by one second.
All of the CSUS students are 12 or 13, and were up against kids up to 9th grade (around 15).
The team came in second in IS Intermediate.
They trained 2-3 times a week for the past month.
They all had a positive, open, serious attitude toward training. They engaged naturally and deeply in course reviews and discussions about the sport. I am so proud of them all.
Keegan, Saturday.