In the 2008 New Jersey Meet of Champions race, the Ridge Girls Cross Country team lost their match by one point, and the devastated team set their goals for retribution. Seven years later on November 21st, 2015, for the first time in Ridge history, the Varsity Girls Cross Country team claimed their title as MOC champions, otherwise known as the best team in New Jersey.

The team started the season with many highs and lows. While they took second place in both the County Championships and Sectionals meets, they missed the championship title that they have long waited for. However, at Holmdel park, the team took home a first place victory in the Group IV race, setting a promising precedent for their race the following Saturday at the same location.

The race had a rough start; the team did not start out as a pack as they had planned with their head coach, Coach Mooney. It wasn’t until a fifth of the way through that the team started to find each other through the enormous herd of runners and began to group in tight packs. The second half of the race was when the team started to look like the winning team.

After the infamous “bowl,” a 200-meter steep hill, the team started to pack together. The team’s lead runner and captain, Sophie Spring ’16, ran in front of the both top runners from North Hunterdon and Hillsborough, with Spring’s teammates Claire Jones ’17 and Shayna Bains ’17 following closely behind.

As they pulled in their final stretch, the team powered through to secure the championship title. The five scoring Ridge runners finished the 5K race with a 33 second gap between them; this includes Spring, Jones, Bains, Lexy Donaldson ’17, and Catherine Giuseffi ’17.

Spring finished 25th, racing a time of 19:22; Jones finished 30th with 19:30, Bains finished 35th with 19:35, Donaldson finished 46th with 19:48, and Giuseffi finished 56th with 19:55. The average time totaled a 19:38, which set a new school record for the course and scored a total of 72 points to win the entire meet.

The runners and coaches were ecstatic about the win and the entire team rushed to congratulate them with painted faces and enormous signs.

Spring comments about her team: “It was an amazing experience to win for the first time in Ridge history. It was truly a team victory, and we couldn’t have done it if everyone hadn’t been working together and running their hardest!”

The future is bright for the Ridge Girls Cross Country team. While some of the best runners of the team will be graduating, only two seniors will be leaving the varsity team. Jones comments, “I’m very optimistic for the team’s future, because our varsity is only losing two seniors, and I know some of the younger kids will step up— so next year I think we’re going to have a very strong team. Also, this victory will inspire the team to achieve more titles in the future.”

As new state champions, the team has already achieved outstandingly. With the Winter Track and Field season starting in December, more successes are ahead of them.