Trent Thibault wins state XC title, Tsadia Bercuvitz runner-up

On November 15, the state cross country championships took place at Queensbury High School. Every year there’s a strong contingent of Tompkins County runners who compete at states, and this year was by far the most successful in recent memory, highlighted by a state champion.

Thibault takes gold

Lansing’s Trent Thibault came out on top in the Class C boys race with a time of 15 minutes and 28.2 seconds, beating the runner-up by nearly 11 seconds. Thibault continues the strong legacy of Bobcats winning state titles. It’s the tenth state championship won by a Lansing team or individual, the most recent one being volleyball’s Class B title in 2023.

Thibault has flirted with prevailing at the state level in previous years. He placed third as a sophomore and finished in fifth as a junior. Last year’s performance acted as motivation for Thibault to secure the crown in his final fall season with the Bobcats.

“It feels great,” Thibault said after the race. “It wasn’t the race I wanted last year, and I knew that coming in I trusted my fitness and just kind of rolled with how the race played out.”

Thibault shaved off nearly 33 seconds compared to last year’s state run on the same course. That’s just one example of how he’s shown tremendous growth throughout his stellar cross country career.

“I’d say I’m a lot stronger,” Thibault said. “Freshman year and even into sophomore year, I wasn’t really doing that many weights and exercises and stuff like that. Through the years, lifting consistently has improved both my endurance and the shorter sprint fast-twitch muscles.”

Thibault aims for more postseason hardware on November 22 at the New York Federation Championships at Bowdoin Park in Wappinger Falls. Having already won his third career IAC and Section IV titles to complement his first-ever state title, he’s more than ready to make his final cross country race of his high school career another prosperous one.

“I’ve been running a lot of hills during this cross country season, so I’m definitely well prepared for Bowdoin Park,” Thibault said. “My previous two meets were both hilly courses. Especially sectionals, it was a hilly course and it was muddy, so that kind of prepared me for any race conditions that we might have in the postseason.”

Luckily for the Bobcat faithful, federations will not be Thibault’s very-last cross country race. He recently committed to Columbia University as a distance runner, joining the ever-growing list of Bobcats to compete at the Division I level. While there’s still the indoor and outdoor track seasons for Thibault, even more eyes will be on one of the top runners in Tompkins County history.

“If somebody were to watch me, they’d see me pretty dialed in and being focused on the task at hand and putting in my best effort and making sure that nothing is left out on the course,” Thibault said.

Two other Bobcats raced at states. Evie Jackson placed 82nd in the Class C girls race while freshman Melody Sternberg finished in 103rd place.

Bercuvitz brings home silver

It was also a successful state run for Ithaca’s Tsadia Bercuvitz. The junior finished runner-up in the Class A girls race with a time of 17 minutes and 25.2 seconds. It’s the second straight year she’s earned runner-up honors and improved on last year’s time by seven seconds.

This postseason has been business as usual for Bercuvitz, winning her second consecutive STAC title and Section IV crown. While it’s the same level of success as last year, Bercuvitz has made even more progress this time around.

“I think this year, she is really finding things that are clicking both in terms of her strength training and her run training, and then also putting her mental mindset into a spot of holding both big ambition, ongoing humility and patience with the process,” said head coach Becca Lovenheim. “She knows that we have big goals for high school, but she also has big goals beyond that. So looking at it, [she’s] been able to zoom in and zoom out.”

Bercuvitz led the girls team to a fifth-place finish at states with seven runners taking part in the race. Mattea Dauria and Avery Whittaker placed in the top 50 at 43rd and 50th respectively. Nora Golden (87th place), Skyler Lovenheim (90th), Ruby Betts (103rd) and Taylor Kerber (104th) also competed.

On the boys team, Zoli Nadasdy finished in 25th place, twin brother Andor placed 76th, and Will Boscia rounded out the Little Red runners in 92nd place.

Both Ithaca cross country teams qualified for the federation championships.

Bush boasts top-15 finish

Groton’s Ross Bush made his second appearance at states as he finished in 14th place in the boys Class D race with a time of 16 minutes and 35.2 seconds. The senior was third among the Section IV runners in that race and improved upon last year’s state performance by 38 seconds and 19 places.

Earlier in the postseason, Bush finished in third place at IACs and second place at sectionals.