Top Sports Stories 2016: Lee, SWR race to state title
It was another banner year on the track and cross country courses for Shoreham-Wading River’s Katherine Lee. She started 2016 in the midst of the indoor track season, where she helped lead the Wildcats to a second-place finish at the small school county championship meet. Lee won the 600-meter run and finished second in the 1,500 while also running a relay.
She was the Section XI champion in the 3,000 and 600 at the state qualifier meet.
In the spring she helped lead the Wildcats to another second-place finish, this time at the Division III Championship meet. Lee swept first in the 800, 1,500 and 3,000 while also running on the second-place 4 x 800 relay team.
She again won the 3,000 and 1,500 at the state qualifier meet and also helped propel the relay team to victory. She earned all-state honors in both the 3,000 and 1,500 by finishing fifth in each event.
In the fall season, now as a junior, Lee and her teammates in cross country had their best season yet. Lee won every race she competed in up until the prestigious Nike Cross Nationals in Oregon. She was the first Shoreham runner to qualify for the meet and the Wildcats narrowly missed qualifying as a team.
Lee finished 10th at Nationals to earn all-America honors.
She was dominant from start to finish in cross country. In the state qualifier meet she set a course record at Sunken Meadow State Park by running the 5-kilometer course in 18 minutes 10.37 seconds, nearly a minute ahead of the second-place runner. Her teammates — Maria Smith, Payton Capes-Davis, Allie Hays and Amanda Dwyer — weren’t far behind as the Wildcats won the county title.
It set the stage for the team to win the state title — only the second in program history.
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