AHN’s No. 1 runner from ‘09 leaves team

Posted Aug 22, 2010 by Bill Ward

Updated Aug 22, 2010 at 02:32 PM

Cristina Snyder, the Academy of the Holy Names’ No. 1 runner last season and a top-10 performer in both the district and regional meets, has decided to leave the sport for at least one season, Jaguars coach Ray Rodriguez announced this week.

“She just says she wants to take a year off, primarily to focus on school work during the time of adjustment from middle school to high school,” Rodriguez said via e-mail.

Snyder took third in the Class 2A-District 5 meet and followed that with a 10th-place showing in the 2A-Region 3 race. Led by her efforts, the Jaguars won the district and were third in the regional. They also qualified for state, where Snyder was their top finisher 60th place and the team was 19th.

The loss of Snyder, however, could be softened by the addition of eighth-grade standout Colleen Doherty. She was actually faster than Snyder last season as a seventh grader but Rodriguez has a team rule where first-year middle school runners are not allowed to run on AHN’s varsity.

Doherty beat Snyder head-to-head in the Freshman/Sophomore meet and has already posted a 5-kilometer time of 20:04 on the roads. In track last spring, she was third in the regional meet 1,600-meter run in 5:20.03 and reached the medals podium at the 2A state finals with an eighth-place time of 5:21.34. She was also a member of the Jaguars’ school-record setting 4x800 relay team that was seventh at the state meet.

Also expected to compete this fall for AHN are seniors Marisa Petrick, Lindsey Hahn and Katie Martin, junior Amanada McWilliams and freshmen Allie Reichert and Natalie Hahn (Lindsey’s sister).

Photos: Top—Cristina Snyder, is leaving AHN cross country for at least one season. Bottom—Eighth grader Colleen Doherty, who didn’t run varsity cross country in 2009, is expected to be the Jaguars’ No. 1 runner this fall. Photos by Bill Ward.