Peddie boys cross country and Peddie girls cross country both earned wins at home at Peddie Golf Course for Peddie-Blair Day in the last event of the season and clinch the Kelley-Potter Cup for the Falcons.
Event summary: On a clear, crisp Blair Day afternoon, the Peddie cross country team took part in one of the country’s oldest and most spirited prep school rivalries against its counterparts from Blair Academy. Covering two miles at Peddie Golf Course and then navigating nearby neighborhoods en route to a fast finish on campus in front of hundreds of supporters, the Falcons completed their seasons with a pair of victories: the girls defeated Blair, 20-38, and the boys beat the Bucs, 21-40.
James Hamnett ’25 captured his second victory of the season in a personal record of 16:44. Co-captain Baker Pott ’25 (second, 16:57) ran right with Hamnett for the entire race and gave Peddie a strong start ahead of Blair’s top two runners, who finished third and fourth. After that, the Falcons quickly closed out the scoring and secured a win for the blue and gold, taking the next five places in a span of just nine seconds. Jack Stewart ’25 (fifth, 17:44), Theo Salapatas ’27 (sixth, 17:46), Ethan Sbarro ’26 (seventh, 17:51), Landen Jefferson ’25 (eighth, 17:52), and Rishi Swaminathan ’25 (ninth, 17:53) used impressive pack running to give Peddie its best compression of the season with a gap of only 1:09 between its first and seventh runners.
Dasyer Bullock ’26 (16th, 19:17) showed incredible grit as he overcame a fall en route to his first Peddie-Blair Day finish while Josh Li ’26 (19th, 19:34) and co-captain Matt Luo ’25 (20th, 19:35) crossed the line in quick succession to close out the top 10 for Peddie. Also racing well for the Falcons were: James Radigan ’25 (23rd, 19:54), Arnav Shankar ’28 (24th, 20:14), Justin Zhang ’28 (25th, 20:16), Leo Pan-Wang ’26 (26th, 20:25), Jacob Kidd ’26 (28th, 20:48), Ben McMahon ’28 (29th, 20:58), Finn Gorsline ’27 (30th, 21:02), Aaron Linke ’28 (32nd, 21:10), Peter Wang ’26 (33rd, 21:35), Zachary Ji ’27 (34th, 21:41), Brennan Caldwell ’28 (35th, 21:43), Jerry Yao ’26 (36th, 21:50), Myles Onion ’27 (37th, 22:01), Milan Shah ’27 (38th, 22:05), Justin Tang ’27 (39th, 22:08), Neil Bhuteja ’26 (40th, 22:16), Evan Ren ’27 (42nd, 22:50), Rohan Bhamidipati ’28 (43rd, 23:02), Chi Nhan Vu ’26 (44th, 23:12), Sam Lallier ’28 (45th, 23:40), Tony Kim ’28 (46th, 23:55), Aiden Sung ’27 (47th, 24:12), Jonathan Lerner-Nunez ’26 (49th, 24:15), Albert Yang ’26 (50th, 25:43), Arjun Chityala ’25 (51st, 25:45), Michael Wu ’28 (52nd, 26:04), Richard Hong ’28 (53rd, 26:14) and Hari Pandya ’28 (54th, 30:18).
Co-captain Matilda Kardhashi ’25 won the race on the girls’ side with a time of 18:35 and led a 1-2-3 finish for the Falcons, as Eliza Lamar ’25 (19:22) was the runner up and Courtney Cane ’25 (19:30) helped Peddie sweep the podium. Carolina Lopez-Watt ’25 (sixth, 21:13) prevented Blair from taking the next three places while Charis Chien ’27 (eighth, 21:50) and co-captain Sophie Winn ’26 (ninth, 21:56) finished in quick succession to break the 22-minute barrier. Ananya Hari ’25 (11th, 22:02) displaced the Bucs’ fifth runner and closed out the scoring to secure a clean sweep for the girls and boys in blue and gold, not to mention a 6-5 win for Peddie in the overall competition (the hosts also earned points via wins by the girls varsity and JV tennis teams, the girls JV field hockey squad, and the girls JV soccer side). Also racing well for Peddie were: Louisa Blix ’28 (13th, 23:05), Kira Pramanik ’26 (16th, 23:54), Annie Wang ’27 (18th, 24:16), Olivia Timmerman ’27 (19th, 25:20), Lorena Camargo Carcano ’28 (25th, 28:09) and Harajah Haruna ’28 (26th, 33:49).
In total, more than 70 percent of Peddie’s runners (36 out of 51) ran personal bests in this final 5K of the season, demonstrating the persistence and continued improvement of the team over the course of the racing schedule.