A Good Day for the Ranti Family

(Photo H. Finch)

After three and a half weeks of anticipation the Newton North XC teams were finally competing against a real foe yesterday, and not just the stopwatch.

On a beautiful day for running fast at Cold Spring Park, the boys dispatched Wellesley, taking the top three spots, and seven of the top 11 places. The Tigers were led by Seb Putzys, who ran 16:26 for the win, Dan Hamilton (16:53), and Ben Chebot (17:10). Charlie Krasnow ran 17:42 to place sixth, while freshman Dan Ranti ran the fastest debut time since Chris Barnicle's 17:42 in 2001, placing 8th in 18:18. Rounding out the top seven, Jarad Forman (18:36) and Jake Gleason (18:37) finished 10th and 11th, respectively. The final score was Newton 20 - Wellesley 39.

[Historical note: Seb is now the fourth fastest runner at Cold Springs in the last seven seasons (2001-2007). The only ones faster are Chris Barnicle, David Polgar, and Brookline's Mattias Carrasco.]

The Newton North girls faced an extraordinarily deep Wellesley team and fell 21-39. It wasn't that the Tigers didn't run well; every one of Newton's top five ran faster than their best time last year at Cold Spring. The problem was that Wellesley was really, really fast and deep. Leading the Tigers and winning the race was Carolyn Ranti, whose 19:03 demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that she is officially an elite runner now. I would use the term "Bartonesque," but Carolyn is such a different runner that the word seems unwarranted. After Ranti, Wellesley placed 2-3-4-5, their pack interrupted momentarily by Franca Godenzi, who ran an excellent time of 20:32. Two more Wellesley girls finished before Nora Barnicle, who took 9th. Adina Hemley-Bronstein finished 11th.

Newton runs next on Thursday, taking on Braintree (24-31 losers to Framingham Tuesday ) and Norwood (who fell to Weymouth).