The last time the MA All-State XC meet was held in Gardner was Nov. 20, 2004. The course at the Gardner Municipal Golf Course was in good shape, which was surprising because it had been blanketed with snow a week earlier, forcing postponement of the Central Mass Divisional Championships until Monday.
The snow had not delayed the EMass meet on Nov 13. Even though four inches fell on Franklin Park overnight and another two inches feel during the meet, the races went on. Newton North eked out a narrow win over Brockton on the strength of a 1-3 finish from Chris Barnicle and David Polgar. Brockton's pack looked awfully good, though, as they placed four runners in front of Newton North's third, Clayton Lloyd.
Lloyd had gotten off to a slow start in cross-country that year. A ruptured spleen from a fall suffered in June had kept him from running for two full months, and he didn't start any kind of training until the first week of August. In the first few meets of September, he finished seventh for the Tigers. As the season went on, he became a reliable member of Newton's top five, and he was the fifth runner for Newton at the league meet (9th overall). Never considered a top runner, Lloyd had a habit of running well when it counted most. His race at EMass was clutch, as he passed Brockton's fifth runner in the final 200 meters to take 17th and help secure Newton's 63-67 win over the Boxers.
But nothing he had done that season prepared us for his race at the State meet.
In the early going, he ran conservatively. At one point, biding his time behind a large pack, he was forced to hurdle the runner in front of him, who went down after tripping on a post that was marking a turn on the course. In the hilly middle section of the course he started moving up.
With 1K to go, he had moved into the top twenty-five, and still looked great. With Dan Chebot and Doug Brecher ahead of the Brockton pack, it looked like Newton had the meet won, but the Boxers had run conservatively, too, and now they were surging. Kevin Gill, Keon Valcourt, Geovanni Timberlake, and David Lopes were all passing people, and with Jose DePina running in fifth, the race for the state championship was on.
As Barnicle jogged across the line with his first individual state XC championship, and David Polgar battled with Brian Gagnon for 10th place, Chebot and Brecher were hanging on for dear life. Of all the Tiger runners only Clayton Lloyd was still passing people.
When he crossed the line, Clay had placed 17th, the same spot he had in the EMass meet against a thinner field. He had beaten all of the Brockton runners except DePina, including future state track champions Kevin Gill and David Lopes. He had finished one second behind the 2005 XC champion-to-be Mark Amirault. It was the finest race of his H.S. career, and if he had run a mere five seconds slower, it would have been Brockton holding the state championship trophy.
Here are the top results from that meet:
1 Barnicle, Chris 12 Newton North HS 14:09 1
2 Boone, Josh SR Gardner 14:18 2
3 Morris, Paul 12 Lexington HS 14:21
4 Ritchie, Tim SR Doherty 14:32
5 Regnier, Jesse Ludlow High School 14:35 3
6 De Pina, Jose 11 Brockton HS 14:38 4
7 Welch, Jefferson 12 Haverhill HS 14:40
8 Tieuli, Matt JR Saint John's 14:42 5
9 Miranda, Mike 12 Methuen HS 14:43 6
10 Polgar, David 11 Newton North HS 14:44 7
11 Gagnon, Brian 12 Lowell HS 14:44 8
12 Andrews, Josh 11 Chelmsford HS 14:47 9
13 Sampson, Zach 11 Haverhill HS 14:51
14 Sanca, Ruben 12 O'Bryant 14:51
15 Amirault, Mark 10 Xaverian 14:53
16 Burmeister, Taylor 12 Concord-Carlisle HS 14:54 10
17 Lloyd, Clayton 12 Newton North HS 14:54 11
18 Gill, Kevin 10 Brockton HS 14:57 12
19 Fullerton, Patrick 10 Haverhill HS 14:57
20 Forbes, Chris 11 Methuen HS 14:58 13
21 Valcourt, Keon 12 Brockton HS 14:59 14
22 Carpenito, Joe 12 Concord-Carlisle HS 15:01 15
23 Phillippo, Matt 12 Concord-Carlisle HS 15:03 16
24 Kalinoski, Jon 12 Chelmsford HS 15:04 17
25 Timberlake, Geovani 10 Brockton HS 15:05 18
26 Lopes, David 12 Brockton HS 15:06 19
27 Sargent, Jon SR Oakmont 15:06
28 Burke, Ryan 12 Revere HS 15:08
29 Sullivan, Mike Westfield High S 15:09 20
30 Czupryna, Steve Chicopee Compreh 15:09
31 Chebot, Dan 12 Newton North HS 15:09 21
32 Brecher, Doug 11 Newton North HS 15:10 22
Clay went on to have a modest indoor and outdoor track season, graduated and went off to Brandeis for a year, where he ran XC for a season. He has been working with City Year in Philadelphia for the last year and a half. He stopped by Cold Spring Park this summer to say hi, and said he hadn't given up on running but it wasn't his priority right now.
He might not be tearing it up for colleges now, but that race in 2004 makes Clay a Newton North legend.
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7 comments:
Great memories for NN. I'm hoping for some good memories form Gardner as well, hopefully without all the drama though. Hope to see you there.
Jon, thanks for writing this, I do remember the tension after finishing the race and trying to figure out where we stood. The few times i was in sight of Clay I wouldn't have guessed he'd finished so high up as he was positioned pretty far back behind Brockton's 6. Clay beating Gill was a shock and he almost had Amirault ever. After hearing that Polgar had finished tenth and not in the top 5, I thought we might be done because I hadn't thought of all the non-scoring individuals ahead of him(whoops).
P.S. Jon I'm coming home next Wednesday noonish and leaving Sunday at noon and I'm wondering are you going to be around for some running. Would be great to catch up.
- Noah
I remember talking to clay about this after the race and asking him how he was able to beat both mark and kevin gill and clay said:"i just really didn't want to lose to any sophomores"-epic quote. Clayton is truly a monster of a man and some not to be taken lightly on the xc feild, i only hope that running for bates will afford me the chance to face him at least one more time when/if he returns to brandies.
P.S.- john im also coming home for break, ill be back this monday it would be great to see/harash you
-Doug
that was definitely one of the greatest races i've ever seen. almost made me glad i was on the sideline to watch it...
Loved the post.
It reminds me of teammates of mine who were talented but never ran in college. High school cross-country has a meaning that you just don't get in college. You will never be that age and in that stage of your life again.
For me, I have vivid memories of running against Catholic Memorial in 1987. Their star was John Finn, who had rund some amazing times as a sophomore. I was running for Xaverian, and we had graduated a class of guys that was incredible - four or five guys who had run 4:30 and 9:40. We were the scrubs - none of us had broken 10:00. The league was gunning for us after we had won three years in a row.
Neal Patel hadn't even run varsity the year before, yet on that fateful day at the old Xaverian course (three loops around campus), he was untouchable, running away from Finn and leading us to a 26-29 victory. We won the conference again, qualified for states and finished 7th.
Neal went to Tufts and never ran competively again. That was mostly because he was pre-med.
Now, he is a pediatrician in Walpole, and still one of my closest friends. In fact, five of our seven guys on that varsity team are still great friends.
Let's not let a legacy fade to legend before a career's over! I know because I never had a full season without drama that my times were erratic, but they definitely follow the trends of the consistency of miles I put in.
Also, if we're talking about remarkable runs, I would put my run of 4:32 at the league meet at the top. The splits were somewhere around 66, 70, 72, 64. If I remember correctly with 300 to go I was with Matias, with 100 Day (Braintree), and by the end it was 4:32 to 4:35 (Day). This was all with maybe 1.5 months training. But then again in a mile race the story unravels much quicker and so details of the race can't necessarily be captured at the race to show as full a picture.
And yet my runs weren't more remarkable in my opinion than the story of Doug's 9:40 2mile. Doug had started as a 10:30s 2miler that season, to hanging on to Dan/myself and produce a string of 10:05ish runs. But it was the race that neither myself nor Dan was in where he ran 9:40 two mile. If doug would like to elaborate, the story is quite remarkable.
-Clay
Great to hear from you, Clay!
However, I have to disagree with you. You running 4:32 in a league championship (which counted for nothing), or Doug running 9:40 in the State coaches meet (which counted for nothing) aren't even in the same league as you running 14:54 in the State Championships with everything on the line.
But then, maybe you ran so well because you weren't worried about any of that... just Clayton being Clayton.
Anyway, it's always great to hear your thoughts. I hope everything is going well in Philly, and that you are staying in shape!
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