Groton distance runners fly out of the gates

There are many components to track and field, but the bread and butter of the sport are the distance events. Each school in Tompkins County has runners who have flourished among the very best in the section and the state, and Groton is no exception.

The Red Hawks have put together some impressive performances throughout the first part of the outdoor season. They’ve competed well at some notable events, including the Marathon Spring Fling and the Legends of the Nights for the IAC-heavy meets and the Dan Fravil Memorial Ithaca Relays showcasing the upper echelon of Section IV athletes.

“I think it really brings out the best of the guys when they can compete against the best,” said boys outdoor track and field head coach Simon Moll. “They don’t want to make up the numbers. They want to go out there and compete. They want to beat these guys, and they’re always keen to see where they are on the leaderboard and how much time they need to make up. It’s very encouraging that they want to beat these guys.”

Moll is a newer face to the Groton running community who has fully embraced working with the younger generation of runners. He has been coaching the youth track and field program since 2023 and is in his second season coaching at the varsity level. 

“Going into varsity was a transition, but working with the youth and then having them come up through modified and now just starting to have the first two come into varsity, I think it’ll only get stronger from there because I already have that dynamic built up.”

The two runners who Moll mentioned are a pair of freshmen: Jacob Jandrokovic and Caleb Downing. The duo has put in some solid performances in the 800-meter and 1,600-meter runs and will only continue to grow as time goes on.

“The impressive thing about Jacob this year is that when I was coaching him in modified, he was pretty content just to sit in the pack, kind of go a little bit unnoticed and ride off the other guys so he would just sit in the pack and finish with the pack,” Moll said. “But this year, he’s developed an instinct to win. He’ll sit in that pack, but then when the time is right, he’ll go out and put the hammer down and try to beat them all.”

“Caleb is one of the most coachable kids that I’ve ever had,” Moll continued. “I can say to Caleb, ‘Go and do this.’ And he’ll be like, ‘Yes,’ and he’ll just go out and do it. I could yell out to him, ‘Caleb, run faster.’ He’s like, ‘Okay, [I’ll] just go and do it.’ There is nothing that I can tell Caleb that he won’t do.”

Moving up a class, Colin O’Brien is in the midst of a superb sophomore season. He’s competed strongly in the 800-meter, 1,600-meter and 3,200-meter runs. He’s not shying away from the shorter-distance events either, and that sort of versatility is exactly what Moll wants out of O’Brien.

“One thing I’ve worked on with Colin this year is just getting raw speed,” Moll said. “I’ve always felt that in order to run faster, you need to actually know how to run fast. You can be a great miler. You can be a great marathoner. But you need to sprint. By sprinting, you’re just teaching yourself to run faster. Colin has done a lot of work on 200-meter repeats this year, and then it’s really shown in the meets when he’s finished with 200 meters to go… This year he wants to learn how to sprint, and he’s got a strong finish now.”

It’s no secret that the Red Hawks’ star runner is Ross Bush. The junior came into the spring off the back of an outstanding indoor campaign, breaking five school records and qualifying for states as part of the intersectional relay team. His magnum opus so far was at the Marathon Spring Fling where he topped the charts in the 400-meter and 800-meter runs. There’s plenty more where that came for the rest of this season.

“He’s really stepped up and highly motivated,” Moll said. “He knows what he’s capable of, so he pretty much trains by himself. I set him his workouts, but he nails him every time. He’s highly disciplined and motivated.”

The Red Hawks set some lofty goals before the season began, mainly involving breaking personal records. They’ve already achieved many of those ambitions, which Moll attributes to their exceptional camaraderie.

“It’s just a really, really tight-knit group,” Moll said. “They encourage and support one another, but I think they also push one another to be better. If one of them has a great result, the other one wants a great result. They all want to be able to celebrate together. I think that pretty much everyone has probably PR’d at least three times already halfway through the season. That’s a combination of working hard but also just supporting each other and having some friendly competition and rivalry within the group.”