List of 2 news stories.

• 8/23 Green Hills Invitational - Tigers Own the Night

  8/25/2025
  In near total darkness, the cross country teams officially opened their seasons at the Green Hill Invitational at the Hermitage on Saturday.

   

  We have a lot of newcomers to the team, and they were tasked with being our first runners of the evening in ​a​ combined boys and girls JV race. The boys' JV were led by Dylan Omary and Meade Kelley in 7th and 8th place, which, combined with Morgan McAteer, Chase Ginsberg, and Oren Schwartz in the top 30, helped the Tigers place 2nd as a team! Kudos to our first-timers on their strong finishes - Yother Phillips, Charlie Brackett, Kireet Annam, Judd Lane, Marcelo Saoud, Knox Followill, and Rishav Reddy.​ On the girls side, the newcomers duo of Ella Apthorp and Kenzie Miller were first to cross in 10th and 11th place after 3.1 miles of running side by side. Next to finish was fighting freshmen Emmeline Self, completing her first 5k since knee surgery earlier this summer, followed by 5k first timers Mia Seltzer, Imaan Salad, Billie Forrester who all gave tremendous efforts! 

   

  Our varsity girls were next to take to the line and what a splendid and sparkling sight it was! 9 Tigers, coated in a robust amount of glitter, ready to battle it out in the dark! Madeleine Wiseman raced confidently with the front of the pack from start to finish, crossing in 11th place in a time of 20:48. Fellow juniors Norah Harrison and Jackie Seale kicked it across the finish line next in 31st & 33rd places, both running over a minute faster than they did in their first 5k last season! Freshman Sydney Lasher and junior Julia Young held their positions well in the middle of the field to finish 54th & 59th and round out our top 5 scorers for the night. Adelaide Ritter and Sadie Mae Bass were our 6th & 7th finishers followed by Lyla Ross and Laura Fonseca. In a competitive field of 17 scoring teams, the USN girls placed 6th with a team average of 22:56 - one minute faster than their team average last year at this time!

   

  The boys' varsity competed in the last race of the evening, aware that the darkness would affect their ability to gauge speed and distance, so the instructions were simply to compete with high effort. And compete they did. Our top 4 - Griffin Davidson, Drew Zwerner, Caleb Friefeld, and Jack Fruin - positioned themselves near the front of the race and moved up and fought for every spot - eventually finishing in 6th/8th/11th/14th, respectively. With James and Caleb Little battling for our fifth/sixth spot in the 30s, the team scored well enough to take 2nd overall in a field of 22 teams. There were also notable performances from Mario Tedeschi and Sean Franke in their first varsity races, and Gryffin Anderson who paced with Sean the whole way. 

   

  Full meet results are viewable here. Note, we have several JV runners who are not listed in these results due to the next race starting before they finished. We are working with the meet director and timing company to get this fixed. 

   

  It was a​n exciting late-night start to the season ​and we ​l​ook forward to more fast racing in two weeks' time​ when our Tiger's head to AL for the Chickasaw Trails Invitational.  

• 8/16 River Campus Pre-Season Opener - The Season is HEATING Up!

  8/18/2025
  Sweltering doesn't even begin to describe the conditions for most of Saturday, and it was even still 97F at 5:30pm, but as the sun began its "descent," the River Campus worked its magic and conditions improved markedly. And so it was that our cross country teams kicked off their seasons with some fun and fast home course racing Saturday night.

   

  The girls ​took off first, with one of their biggest victories of the night occurring before the race even started. 16 Tigers gathered in our pre-race team huddle. That number is double what we had last season (and we were even missing one). They toed the line alongside two of the State's top teams​, Harpeth Hall and BGA, ​and for the next two miles, our girls gave it their all to deliver impressive veteran and debut performances! Madeleine Wiseman led the way looking strong and confident as ever, followed by fellow junior vets Jackie Seale and Adelaide Ritter who both ran notably faster times than they did in last year's season opener. Rounding out our top seven were cross country newcomers Sadie Mae, Sydney Lasher, and Kenzie Miller, with returning senior Laura Fonseca coming in just under the 17 minute mark. First time racers Ella Apthorp, Rose Theobald, Imaan Salad, Emmeline Self, Mia Seltzer, and Billie Forrester all gave tremendous efforts, no doubt spurred on by the encouraging and exuberant cheers of fellow teammates Greenlee Davidson, Lyla Ross, and team manager Alexa Khazanov. ​

   

  The boys had only a not-as-strong-as-usual BGA team to race, so a blowout ensued, with USN taking the first six runners across the line, led by a pack of four in Drew Zwerner, Griffin Davidson, Caleb Freifeld, and Jack Fruin, all within about 15 seconds of one another. Caleb and James Little dueled each other to the line not long after, completing the scoring sweep. There were so many outstanding performances - from seniors like Mario Tedeschi, Sean Franke, and Braun Moore (Sean and Braun both rhyme and have returned to the team after two years away), to first-timers like our gaggle of freshmen who are our future. There was even one USN runner throwing up on another, which is probably on our season's bingo card.

   

  All in all, it was a wonderful start to the season - our first formal 5km competition is this weekend at the Hermitage, late night style. Feel free to come out or wait for another scintillating race report!