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Churchill Again Heads Woodward Relay Field
By Donna Niewiarowski
Journal Staff Writer
The cross country season in Montgomery County has started off for several years with the Woodward Relays with pairs of runners competing for first place. In tomorrow's running through the woods off Old Georgetown Road 240 boys and about 200 girls will be covering the mile course.
Churchill is again the favored team, with Landon a strong challenger, to take the honors from among the 20 teams competing and the Relays are fast becoming the private domain of the Bulldogs. They win it every year, having tied Georgetown Prep once, and soon Churchill coach Andy White may have to start buying his own trophies.
"Individually, it will depend on how the coaches pair their runners," says meet director Greg Dunston of the favored two-man teams. Jon Schelp and Don Kerwin of Landon will head the field going after the meet record set by Ed Boggess and Peter Kirk of Kennedy four years ago. Other strong entries should be John Neff and Bernie Altman of Einstein, Mike Hoppes and Doug Rohrer of Seneca Valley and whatever twosome comes out of the three Churchill runners, Jerry Gerstein, Kenny Short and Matt Howard.
"Overall in the boys, this is not a year for great talent," says Dunston, referring particularly to the public schools, "although there are a lot of kids who can all run together. There's no [Tom] Cuff or [Gary] Hopkins who can pull away."
As for the girls, Churchill, Northwood, Rockville, Sherwood and Seneca Valley are all coming with strong entries and one of those teams should win.
For Northwood, a three-time champion at Woodward, Emily Van De Venter and Susan and Mary Kinnecome will provide the leadership; for Rockville, Louise Mallett, Cynthia Zich and Cynthia Ralay; for Sherwood, Theresa Pack, Doreen Maraffa and Cindy Cook; for Seneca, Hannah Rowe, Theresa Brown, Mary Knight and Diane Martin; and for Churchill, Theresa deGuzman, Diane Perry and Kim Kokulis.
The girls team will run four miles, each member of the pair running two alternate mile. The boys will run six miles, each taking three alternate trips around the course. The boys will take off at 3 p.m. with the girls to follow shortly.
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