Running is hard, but not for the Bayshore varsity girls’ cross country team. They made running look easy this season as they cruised through Eastern Suffolk County, winning all five dual meets en route to a League II title.
The Bayshore Marauders girls XC team is a member of the New York State Public High School Athletic Association (NYSPHSAA) and competes in League II. The team is led by third-year head coach Shayne Lewis. The Marauders finished the regular season with a 5-0-0 record, earning themselves the 2025 League II title. This feat marks the first title since 2018 for the team. This is also the first time in a while that both the girls and boys XC teams went undefeated and claimed the league title.
The squad competed in five meets this season, four against league opponents in Sachem East, Patchogue-Medford, Walt Whitman, and Riverhead. The sole non-league meet was against Half Hollow Hills. Five meets, five Ws. In addition to the dual meets, the Marauders competed in a few invitationals: the Jim Smith Invitational, the Bowdoin XC Invitational, and the Tom Knipfing Invitational.
“The biggest thing is the girls bought in. It’s a lot of talking about these grand words and themes of a team culture, but if the kids don’t actually do it, then it doesn’t produce the result. All summer, the girls showed up three times a week at seven in the morning for workouts. So that was the biggest difference. Now that we have all the fitness from the summer running, we can just turn that into some specific race workouts, and race results have been the benefit and the outcome of that. It’s really been buying in that has been the biggest change,” said Lewis.
Cross country dual meets are typically 2.4-2.5 mile races. The scoring is defined by the top five runners’ times added together. The team with the lowest combined score wins. Bayshore won in decisive fashion, keeping their score under 23 points while their opponents scored 38 plus. Absolutely dominant.
In terms of the Marauders’ strengths, it comes down to consistency and the art of working together as a team. The team is made up of 26 girls, nine of whom are seniors. Testimony Aladegboungbe, Jade Fagan, Alaina Farwell, Kaylin Garcia, Caidence Leftenant, Jasmine Leon, Darlyne Marca Torres, Nailah Mobley, and Maggie McCormick are set to graduate in the spring.
“Overall, it’s our compounding level of consistency. Realistically, we have a girl named Maggie McCormick. She’s one of the best in this state in terms of winter and spring. She’s medaled at the state meet for four years. Having her as this catalyst runner for the younger girls to look up to and for the younger girls to really not, I don’t want to say pressure, but there’s not a ton of it all on them,” said Lewis.
A League II title is back in the hands of the Marauders this season. Division and County championship meets are next on the docket. Those meets will be run in the form of a 5k rather than a 2.4-mile race.
”It’s really cool, it’s something that when I took over, we hadn’t won in quite some time. We didn’t have a lot of depth within the program. We would have one or two top-tier runners, but to win an elite championship, you need the top seven. You need a legitimate group to win and score those points,” said Lewis.
Winning isn’t everything, but it’s certainly nice when it happens. Coach Lewis expressed the importance of helping each individual work to get the most out of what they want out of the sport.
“It just gives a bit of significance to what is required to win. We’ve won it before, looked at the formula, looked at the process, and that’s what the girls take away from this the most. I always talk to them about the process and where they’re gonna go as a program is entirely up to what they buy into, how they buy into it, and how they push the program forward. So the sky’s the limit,” Lewis told The Messenger.
