Newton South leads early, but Lincoln-Sudbury came back to edge the Lions 26-29 in their first of several expected clashes (photo: Henry Finch, Newton South Running Times)
Looking every bit the defending state champions, the Lincoln-Sudbury girls won the first battle of the year against Newton South, 26-29 yesterday in a battle between the two best girls teams in Massachusetts. Sophomore Andrea Keklak and Freshman Corey Stock went 1-2 for the Warriors, overtaking South's Kelsey Karys who had led most of the way.
Incredibly, the top seven runners came in within 15 seconds of each other, and South had a microscopic 22-gap from first to fifth. But Keklak and Stock going 1-2 was huge for L-S, which beat South in the regular season for the fourth straight year.
Although it's early, the meet did nothing to dispel the notion that both teams are capable of great things, and that Lincoln-Sudbury plans to be with (or just ahead of) Newton South every step of the way.
Girls results:
1. Keklak (LS) 16:17
2. Stock (LS) 16:20
3. Karys (NS) 16:21
4. Reed (NS) 16:24
5. O'Keefe (NS) 16:27
6. Gossels (LS) 16:29
7. Hylton (LS) 16:32
8. Dahlberg (NS) 16:42
9. Golovkina (NS) 16:43
10. Arthur (LS) 17:06
In the boys meet, the number-one ranked Newton South Boys dominated L-S, taking the top five places and beating the Warriors in a dual meet for the first time in four years. Andrew Wortham ran 14:11 for the 2.75-mile course, finishing 26 seconds ahead of Arlington's John Jantz (remember that name, folks). N-S was without two of their top seven runners, making the win even more impressive.
For good local coverage of the meet and lots of quotes, check out the story in the Daily News Tribune:
7 comments:
Jon,
I just added:
This (girls varsity) race was very very close. By time NS edged LS by 7 total seconds. 82:37 to 82:44. If this were a big meet the results could have been reversed because of LSs 5th runner being 23 seconds behind NSs 5th runner.
- Henry
"If this were a big meet..."
but it wasn't, was it?
I see an IF in the 1st comment.
Pardon the analysis. I thought I said if.
Looking forward to future meets. Too bad NS isn't running this Saturday, I think too many taking SATs.
LS girls looked great and deserve their #1 northeast and MA rankings.
I assumed what George meant was that in a meet with many more competitors, the scoring might change.
Of course, it's looking more and more like the State-level meets will resemble LS-NS dual meets.
I'm just an outside observer, but how is Dahlberg that far back ? Shouldn't she be winning every race at this point ? Was she sick or injured ?
Yes, both Dahlberg and Juliet Ryan-Davis were under the weather, which could cause some differences in the scores next time NS and L-S face each other. Also, NS is known to be a late-meet big-meet kind of school, in that the first DCL clashes don't necessarily reflect on what can happen at the DCLs, States, Div Is, etc.
So, I guess we'll just have to wait it out and see!
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