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Tully Runners Website |
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Girls & Boys XC Performance Database
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Tracey Brauksieck & Laurel Burdick ... How Do They Compare to Top Section 3 Female Cross Country Runners of the Past ?? The Girl's Footlocker National results for 2001 are posted below with complete speed ratings ... Tracey Brauksieck (Homer) and Laurel Burdick (FM) ran very well in finishing 13th and 22nd in the entire nation ... Congratulations to Tracey and Laurel for an incredible season and outstanding high school XC career. Comparing present-day athletes to athletes of the past is a topic of speculation and differing opinions. Current high school seniors (autumn 2001) Tracey Brauksieck (Homer) and Laurel Burdick (Fayetteville-Manlius) are outstanding runners who have enjoyed remarkable success in cross country competition. For my own interest, I decided to compare their achievements with the top Section 3 XC runners of the past. This comparison focuses on success at the State, Federation and National levels while in high school during the past 25 years. Results for NY State Meets (past 25 years) are available in the 2001 NYSPHSAA State Meet Souvenir Program ... Results for NY Federation Meets are available the NYS Federation 28th Annual Cross Country Championship Program ... Results for the Footlocker Nationals are available on the Internet at the Footlocker site. Below is a table that lists Section 3 results at the various meets. When considered collectively (State, Federation and National), four names rise to the top ... Denise Bushallow (Auburn), Jennifer Rhines (Liverpool), Tracey Brauksieck (Homer) and Laurel Burdick (FM) ... These four runners are listed at the top of the table. Section 3 has produced many other top runners ... I will also note some of their achievements. First, for readers unfamiliar with Denise Bushallow (Auburn) and Jennifer Rhines (Liverpool), here's a little background ... Jennifer Rhines qualified for and competed in the 10,000 meters at the Sydney 2000 Olympics Games ... to the best of my knowledge, Jennifer is the only Section 3 female runner who's actually competed in the Olympics. Her personal bests (set during 2000-2001) are 4:20.17 (1500 meters), 8:50.72 (3000 meters) and 15:13.26 (5000 meters) ... clearly she is an elite runner on the national scene. In high school at Liverpool, Jennifer won two State championships at 1500m in track (1991, 1992) ... her high school best 1500m was 4:31.14. Jennifer graduated from Villanova University with a degree in civil engineering ... in college, she won five NCAA Division I championships at 5000 meters (indoors and outdoors) as well as one cross country championship. Some long time Section 3 observers consider Denise Bushallow (Auburn) to be the best ever Section 3 cross country runner while competing in high school. Denise is one of only ten females in the State to ever win two State titles (she did it in 1985 and 1986) ... she easily won the Federation Meet in 1985 at Sunken Meadows (by 28 seconds), but skipped Federations in 1986 to prepare for Nationals. The Sunken Meadows 5K course is the site of the 2002 State Championships ... Denise's time at Sunken Meadows is the 2nd fastest time ever run there (even faster than Saratoga superstar Erin Davis). Denise also has the 14th fastest time ever run at Van Cortlandt Park's 5K course (nearly half a minute faster than Brauksieck and Burdick) ... she ran the time (17:34.1) in winning the 1986 Northeast Qualifier for the Footlocker (Kinney) Nationals. Denise Bushallow was also outstanding in track ... she still holds the Section 3 record for both the indoor 3000m (9:55.41) and outdoor 3000m (9:37) ... while in high school, she also ran a 10:30.47 two-mile race. Denise attended the University of Kentucky ... while at Kentucky, Denise and her teammates ran the 50th fastest 4x1500m relay in history (Denise had the fastest 1500m split of 4:25.8). The achievements of Laurel Burdick (FM) and Tracey Brauksieck (Homer) have been chronicled on various sections of this website, so I'm not going to duplicate them here. Both Laurel and Tracey are in the top five fastest times ever run at Bowdoin Park (site of Federations since 1989) ... Laurel is the only Section 3 to qualify for three National finals (Tracey, Denise and Jennifer qualified for two). After graduation, Laurel will attend Boston College and Tracey will attend Penn State University. Section 3 has produced many other outstanding XC runners ... they can be identified in the table below. For example, Chris Rolleri (Skaneateles) was in the top 6 finishers of five State Meets (1987-1991) and in the top 11 finishers of four Federation Meets. When discussing the best Section 3 runners, many coaches include Patty Wiegand (Canastota) ... she was an outstanding runner (XC and track) in both high school and afterwards ... in high school, she competed against Denise Bushallow many times. Patty Wiegand is one of the ten females to win two State XC championships (1984 and 1985). Other long time Section 3 observers cited Kim Sharpe (North Syracuse) as a top Section 3 runner ... Kim was the State Class A champion in both 1976 and 1977 (winning easily both times) ... she did not compete in Feds (Feds were not as important 25 years ago) and the Nationals (Kinney/Footlocker) had yet to start.
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