By CHRISTOPHER TREMBLAY, Sports Staff Writer

Every once in a while a gifted athlete comes along that brings great promise to their high school sport. Cameron Davis is one such athlete that has been bringing success to the Oxford Cross Country team in her first varsity season while technically not even in high school as of yet. Davis is only an eighth grader at the Oxford Middle School.

 

The youngster got involved in running in the fifth grade, but unfortunately the following year was the start of the Covid pandemic and her running slowed to a crawl for a period of time, but now she’s shining for the varsity squad and Coach Tim Craig. 

“Despite being an eighth grader running for the varsity team she adapted very quickly and has the ability to handle whatever is asked of her,” the Oxford coach said. “There is a competitiveness about her; there is no big ego, but she wants to win, and this is something that you can’t coach.” 

According to the Oxford runner she got involved in running because her older brother Nathan, by two years, was running cross country at the time and her mother thought that it would be a good idea for her and her twin sister (Abigail) to also run cross country. 

“It was really exciting to follow in my brother’s footsteps,” Davis said. “Both my mother and father also ran in high school.”

Although the entire Davis family found themselves running a few years back, it’s basically now just Cameron who is running for the high school. Nathan has shifted his focus to soccer and Abigail does not participate in high school sports. In addition to running cross country Davis also plays club soccer for the Spirit of Liverpool, where she plays defense. 

“I like both sports, but to choose between the two is a tough question,” she said. “If I had to choose I think that I’d pick running because I think that I am better at cross country.”

The eighth grader originally found that running with the varsity team was a rather tough transition and much different than running with the middle school. However, after a few races she began to feel comfortable and found that it really wasn’t that much different than what she was used to.

“Having the ability to run with the high school had me very nervous at first because the team was a lot of older girls and I was only an eighth grader,” Davis said. “I thought that I was not going to be as strong as they were, and I wouldn’t be able to keep up with them. I just went out and tried to run as well as I could and found my way through the courses staying with them.”

According to Davis, she can usually finish a 5K race in about a 20–22-minute time frame. Over the first few races she found herself running right there with the older girls on both teams and before too long she was crossing the finish line before anyone else.

“It was really quite a shock to me,” she said. “It was a lot different than middle school and the girls on the high school team were older, so I figured that it was going to be tough. I guess that running just comes naturally to me.”

Craig, who had seen Davis run as a seventh grader last year, knew that she had raw talent, but would that be able to translate to the cross-country courses on the high school level?

“Reality is that you really don’t know what you’ve got until you see her progress on this level throughout the high school season. At this point I honestly don’t know what her ceiling is,” Craig said. “I don’t think that she has found her best pace yet. The only time that she hasn’t finished in first place this year was the first meet of the season (she was third) as I told the younger runners not to go crazy having not run in a varsity meet before.”

The Pirates coach went on to note that since that first race Davis has had no real competition and being a competitive individual, you know that she’s going to give it her best effort each time.

Davis not only runs 6-6 ½ miles on Fridays but trains with the boys team and she believes that is a big help in her training. 

Although only a first-year varsity high school runner with the cross-country team the eighth grader is looking to continue running cross country for the Pirates over the next four years while also giving distance running for the track team a try in the spring. 

This year she is hoping to make it to the middle school state tournament once again (last year she ran the 1.7 miles in 10:43), while her coach wants her to try to qualify for the high school state tournament. The young runner says she’ll give it a shot but knows it’s going to be a challenge for sure. 

Despite being an eighth grader running for the varsity high school team, Davis is always looking out for her teammates and how they are doing, especially her captain, Carly Cornacchioli.

“Cam is very close with Carly, and she made a comment to her saying that she wished that she was only a junior so that she could be the captain again next year,” Craig said. “That speaks volumes about her as a person and her relationship with her captain.”

It may only be her first season running cross country for Oxford, but she is looking to improve upon her running and continue dropping her times in hopes of eventually earning herself a scholarship and get into college. While the possibility of running for a collegiate school is still almost five years away, Davis plans on working on her running for this year and accomplishing her goals of making it to the State Tournament, where she hopes to do well.

Running the 2.95-mile course in the SWCL Cross Country Championship Meet, Davis once again found herself crossing the finish line first with a time of 19:41 to capture the title. The eighth grader’s closest competitor (senior Tessa Kline of Tantasqua) was 48.4 seconds behind her. The top five runners consisted of Davis and four seniors.