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Curtis Boys Win City X-C ChampionshipBy Peter Whitehouse The predicted five-team competition for first place in last Saturday’s PSAL Boys Cross Country Championship at Van Cortland Park never materialized. Curtis High School’s convincing win saw to that. On this day of perfect cross country weather Curtis supplied the excellence. The remaining four other teams, in their quest for second place, supplied the drama. The individual race winner James Mulligan of Bronx Science was almost as dominant as was the Curtis team. Mulligan’s race for the gold medal was never really threatened. He finished strongly at 16:46.49, all alone, fifty yards ahead of everyone. Curtis coach Ron Banks felt that since his team was top-ranked going into the meet, the opposition would logically be focused on his boys. He had a plan for that. “I told my team that I was sure that other coaches had formulated strategies for their guys that were specifically geared to beating us. But I said, ‘forget that’ and just run your own races and not run like the ‘hunted.’ ” The rightness of that strategy was evident by mid race as the Curtis team moved smartly into secure positions. At the finish John Olsen led the way in fifth place. Olsen was closely followed by Maurice Harewood, 8th, Boris Kirichansky, 13th, Abraham Marsh, 18th and Donald Mulvihill, 24th, for 68 total points. The Curtis victory was by almost fifty points. By contrast, the total number of points separating the next four teams in the race was just twenty-two! Erasmus Hall snatched second by five over borough rival Midwood, 116-121. This was a great race within the race. Erasmus had opened the campaign last September with a shocking trouncing of Midwood. All season long Midwood was charging back. Saturday they were almost there. Midwood’s coach Sean Rice was happy at least to be vindicated in one way saying, “I told everyone they (Erasmus) were good.” Fourth place went to Clinton by a mere four points over Stuyvesant. The difference here was the masterful work done by senior Julian Brown of Clinton. Brown contributed inspiration and just two points to his team total finishing behind only Mulligan. The run for fourth place in the team standings in this meet carried with it the valuable team prize; the last seven seats on the PSAL bus to next Saturday’s State Meet. Only the top four teams qualify and the ache the fifth place team suffers doesn’t go away quickly. In this case the small margin of difference didn’t make it any easier.
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