Boys cross country: NFA employs different strategy

It was at the Class LL state cross country championships three years ago that Norwich Free Academy coach Chad Johnson realized he had pushed his team too hard in the regular season. They stood before him on that October day at Wickham Park and just didn't have anything left to give; their legs shot.
It was at that time that Johnson decided to adopt a new strategy, run less earlier on and build to the state championships and State Open competitions.
On Tuesday, he went one step further.
Saying his team had potential to do something in October, he sat his top five runners. On top of that, his No. 6 runner had to sit out with an injury. He was relying on the depth of his team to beat an Eastern Connecticut Conference opponent, East Lyme.
The gambit turned out to be a call he probably would like back after his Wildcats lost to the Vikings, 24-32.
"The front guys set different goals for the season and the East Lyme meet wasn't one of them," Johnson said. "I felt confident in our seven through 14 guys that they would be able to get the job done, we didn't want to give it away. But East Lyme ran an inspired race and our guys didn't perform as well as I thought they would."
It puts NFA behind in the conference, a loss that they need some help to recover from if they're going to get anything more than a share of the ECC Large Division title come October.
"That's fine," Johnson said. "We need to run with a true team mentality and when you're asking your guys to get up for a race 13 times, you have to ask for different guys to get up. I expected the guys that we had out there to perform better than they did, but I also think East Lyme ran a heckuva race as well. They ran confident, we ran scared."
Johnson added that, contrary to what some may think, that's not a bad thing. It's part of the maturation process as those runners, who had never been in that situation before, now have experienced it.
"Next time they're in that situation, maybe they will know how to handle it," Johnson said. "We'll get better from this race."