Girls XC competes at Nike Northeast Regionals

On Saturday, a contingent of runners representing the CHS girls cross country team traveled to Wappinger Falls, New York, to participate in the Nike Cross Northeast Regional Championships.

CHS cross country runners Natalie Hales, Olivia Siddons, Isabella Holland, Addy Azar, Lexi Piazza, Lauren Raffetto, and Coach Brian Gotsell prior to the Northeast Championships. (CHS Athletics photo)

Teams from all over New England, New Jersey and Pennsylvania competed at the meet for a chance to earn a spot at the upcoming Nike Cross Nationals in Portland, Oregon. The Canton team, consisting of junior Lauren Raffetto, sophomore Addy Azar, senior Lexi Piazza, junior Isabella Holland, sophomore Natalie Hales and freshman Olivia Siddons, went on to finish 27th out of 31 teams at the regional event. The winning team was Union Catholic from New Jersey.

CHS head cross country coach Brian Gotsell said the course was one of the more challenging that the Bulldogs had seen all season, with the first mile consisting of a series of steep hills. However, that did not stop Raffetto from positioning herself inside the top 20 in a field of more than 260 competitors. Raffetto continued to push the pace through the steep, meandering climbs, and with a quarter mile to go she began her signature kick, passing several runners to finish 18th overall with a time of 18:43.8.

Raffetto was one of only 26 runners to clear the 19-minute mark, although there was still a sizable gap between the top five finishers and the rest of the field, with eventual winner Blair Bartlett of New Jersey recording a blazing-fast time of 17:00.6.

Canton’s other top performer on the day was Azar, who ran hard through the muddy layout to place 117th (20:13.6). Holland was next to cross the finish line for the Bulldogs, passing more than 20 runners over the second half of the course to place 209th (21:30.1), followed by Hales (23:34.9) and Siddons (24:43.4), who both ran hard to complete the 5k course.

“These ladies represented Canton proudly,” said Gotsell. “They went toe to toe with the best the Northeast has to offer and showed them what Bulldog cross country is all about. It was a great way to cap off our historic season.”

Gotsell’s choice of words was certainly fitting, as this year’s Bulldogs not only won the Hockomock League Championship meet for the first time in nearly a half century, but also went on to place second overall at the Division 2 Meet of Champions. The Canton girls also finished as runners-up at the MSTCA Twilight Invitational earlier this season and took sixth overall at the MIAA Division 2A Championships.

Individually, Raffetto only further cemented her place among the greatest CHS distance runners of all time, capturing her first career individual league title to go along with a runner-up finish at the division championships and a fifth-place finish at the Meet of Champions.

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Posted by Mike Berger on Nov 27 2025. Filed under High School, Sports. Both comments and pings are currently closed.