Martlets Fly Together

By ​Catie McGuigan ’23 and Hayden Schneider ’25

The Choate Rosemary Hall hosted the premiere meet for the Westminster girls’ cross country team Saturday, Sept. 17. Catie McGuigan ’23, Saskia Mattiko ’23 and Hayden Schneider ’25 stepped onto the starting line for the varsity race. The two returning Sixth Former brought in the incoming Fourth Former for a huddle before Schneider’s first 5k as a martlet. The team of three took their first strides into the season. Schneider, McGuigan and Mattiko stayed together as a team for the first mile all the way through the third and crossed over the finish with each runner kicking with the remaining energy they had so as to not let any competition pass them. The girls blew through the finish line within seconds of each other, starting out the season as a team.

The rest of the girls’ cross country team continued warmups, workouts and warm weather runs together all season. The team started to create traditions such as blasting McGuigan’s “clean hype” playlist around the upper fields, writing mantras on their arms for race day, and wearing personalized hair ribbons. A new tradition of “secret psycher” was also created — a version of secret Santa as a team bonding experience and a way to hype up the team before each meet. This team dissolved cross country’s reputation of not being a team sport. The girls continued to race with each other, lifting one another up if one martlet was having an off or difficult day.
 
On the last home meet against Ms. Porter’s, the Sixth Formers on the team — Catie McGuigan, Chiamaka Kanu, Alice Liu, Saskia Mattiko, and captains Emma Mason and Simone Routledge — reflected on their time on the team. All have had outstanding seasons with the cross country team and will truly miss their running experiences at Westminster. At the two final meets of the season — Founders League Championships meet held at Choate Rosemary Hall and New England’s Championships at St. Mark’s — McGuigan, Mattiko, and Schneider continued to run as a pack.
 
Ultimately, the girls’ cross country team truly embodied Westminster’s core value of community and built one while running three to eight miles a day and they couldn’t have done it without the amazing support of coach Urner-Berry and head coach Vailas.