It was wonderful to see Jess manage the Northfield course so well. I think she was able to apply her effort evenly over the entire course. That is, she didn't win by running a very fast opening mile and then hanging on, nor did she run too easily at the beginning and then demolish everyone with a powerful surge. She ran a strong, but controlled first mile, pursued the leader aggressively through the downhill second mile, and then continued to apply pressure in the last mile, pulling away decisively. It was a beautifully run race, in the biggest race of the year. Congratulations to the Division I Girls Runner of the Year! And good luck to Jess next Saturday at the Footlocker Northeast Regional!!
Natick's Becca White ran another strong race to place 5th overall in 19:51. Her season has been astounding for the number of quality races she has run. Remember she started the season by running a course record at Brookline, won the Franklin Park Invitational at the end of September, finished third to Barton and Jamieson at the Bay State Invite Oct. 14, was second to Barton in the Bay State league meet, won the Div II Emass meet, and then improved her time at Northfield to finish as the top sophomore in Div I. Her durability and mental toughness have been quite amazing. Natick's #2 runner Anya Price seemed to track her teammate all year, and had a very good run at the State meet to finish 23rd overall (20:32, 10 seconds faster than she ran here in October). Both girls return next year, and that team is going to be very, very good.
The Weymouth girls ran quite well to a 7th-place finish, ahead of Newton South and Chelmsford. Kriten Mahoney ran especially well, finishing 10th overall in 20:05. It was the final XC race for the stalwart Nicole Pearce and Sam Sachetti. I will miss seeing Pearce attacking races right from the start, but with two good sophomores (Connolly and McCarthey) returning, Weymouth will also be strong next year.
Another individual from the Bay State was Needham junior Emily Lipman, who was one second behind Pearce, finishing 33rd in 20:44.
About Lincoln-Sudbury -- some people might think they ran poorly at Northfield, but this is wrong. In fact, I was wrong about them because I felt sure they were over-raced and would now do well in their second race at the mountain. They proved me wrong; all but one of their runners improved from the Bay State meet. Dana Jamieson recovered nicely from a sub-par effort at EMass to run 19:32 in the State meet and take 3rd. Until Colleen Weatherbee returned to the Dennis-Yarmouth team, L-S was the best team in the state, and they proved that again on Saturday. One startling footnote is that L-S replaced three of the runners who ran for their varsity on Oct. 14, and STILL improved their average time from 20:45 in October to 20:28 in November. It's shocking to think how well their JV team could have done in this meet.
In the Div II girls race, Bromfield won, as expected, and the times at the front were remarkable, with five girls running under the Jess's winning time from Div I. Wellesley seemed to run better than they did at EMass (it helped to have Richardson running closer to her old self), but the results show only six finishers for them. I wonder if one of their runners dropped out, or whether they only ran with six. Top finisher from the Bay State league was Walpole's Olivia Perry (22nd, in 20:27).
The Boys Div I race was really terrific to watch. Ryan Collins made me look smart by winning the boys race, dropping Mark Amirault on the downhill second mile, and breaking away from Kevin Gill with 800m to go. Neither I nor anyone else predicted he would break Victor Gras' course record, though.
Brockton looked like they had waited all year to run this one race, and the performances of Carlos Montrond (4th), Geovanni Timberlake (21st), and James DuBeau (33rd) more than made up for a gap to their fifth man. Their total of 100 points was good enough to beat two very, very good teams in Brookline and St. John's Shrewsbury.
Anyone who thinks Brookline didn't run well wasn't paying attention. As a team, Brookline actually ran an outstanding race, improving quite significantly from their Bay State-winning performance in October. Here's how their top five improved in a month:
Oct 14 Nov 18
----- -----
Gibson 16:22 16:26
Burnstein 17:13 16:44
Lehane 17:35 16:52
Mercurio 17:47 17:07
Eisenberg-Guyot 17:36 17:45
--------------- ----- -----
Avg. 17:18 16:58
True, Robert and Jerzy didn't have great races, but they weren't bad races. And the performances of Burnstein, Lehane, and Mercurio were outstanding. (Has anyone else noticed how quickly Mercurio has ascended to elite status?). Brookline finished third because Brockton ran out of their minds. Here is how Brockton's top four ran in Oct. and Nov. (their #5 on Saturday didn't run at Bay State):
Oct 14 Nov 18
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Gill 16:20 15:59
Montrond 17:00 16:19
Timberlake 17:29 16:50
Dubeau 17:23 17:02
----- -----
Avg. 17:03 16:32
Congratulations are due to Brookline on an outstanding season, and a very gutsy performance in the State meet.
In Div II, Wellesley followed up on their EMass win with a solid performance to finish third in the team standings at Northfield. Tom Mayell ran 17:26 to lead the team, and the gap from Mayell to Andrew Wagner was only 34 seconds.
All-in-all, a great day of racing.
4 comments:
wow congrats to beeca and anya!! they both improved so much this year
good job to kristen mahoney as well, and of course barton on her victory
Jon, I hope you're going to continue updating your blog this winter... at this point so many people read it, how could you not?
i agree!
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