(Photo: Dave Fineman, used totally without permission)
I think we can finally agree that the last four years of Newton South Girls XC will go down in history as the Kelsey Karys era.
It seems like so long ago that Kelsey the freshman finished fourth in the All-State meet and led her team to a second-place finish -- so agonizingly close to Amherst. And then there was Kelsey the sophomore, experiencing the exhaustion of 2006 at Northfield Mountain. Kelsey the junior led her team to an EMass title in 2007, followed by another second-place finish at the state meet in Gardner -- this time to league rivals Lincoln-Sudbury. Finally, in 2008 on a warm, wet, and windy day at Franklin Park, Kelsey the senior ignored the mud, ignored whatever pressure she might have felt, and just plain ran a great race. Unquestionably the leader of what might be, after all, the best Massachusetts girls team of all-time, she ran behind North Andover's Kristin Kasper, but ahead of all others until the very end when she was passed by teammate Bridget Dahlberg and LS sophomore Andrea Keklak.
Watching Karys and Dahlberg, one a veteran of four XC seasons and dozens of big races, the other finally looking at home in a cross-country race in cross-country weather, one felt that it was going to be a good day for the Lions. Although Keklak won the individual battle with a brilliant kick, South placed five runners in the top 20, averaged under 19 minutes on a sloppy course, and won the state title with a paltry 35 points (ahead of L-S with 51). In addition to Dahlberg and Karys, the Lions got great races from Kathy O'Keefe (19:01), Madeleine Reed (19:10, fighting back after a rough spot in the middle of the race), and Olga Golovkina (19:20).
Meanwhile, Kristen Kasper was busy winning her third state title. It was interesting that Kasper and Karys (the KK twins) repeated their finish places from their freshman year.
Actually, that wasn't the only reason for deja vu.
In the girls Div II race in 2005, three freshmen finished in the top ten. Hamilton-Wenham's Emily Lanois, who had won the EMass D4 race the previous week, placed 3rd; Holyoke Catholic's Kristen Veit placed 7th; and Bromfield's Emily Jones placed 10th.
Three years and many miles later, these girls staged a reunion of sorts. In the 2008 D2 race, Jones (17:50), Lanois (18:37), and Veit (18:55) finished 1-3-4.
Not to take anything away from the other runners and the new faces, but we have been privileged to watch Kasper, Jones, Karys, Lanois, and Veit for all these years. It is SO hard to maintain a standard of excellence for so long, but they have done it. Kasper and Jones have six state XC titles between them. Lanois has four EMass D4 titles. Veit has three WMass D2 titles (she finished 2nd as a freshman). Karys has an EMass D1 championship. That's a lot of championships!
It was a just a really strong year, in general. I should mention that in addition to Lincoln-Sudbury, Haverhill was another team that in a normal year was quite good enough to win the state title. This year they had to settle for third behind NS and LS.
In girls D2, Lanois led Hamilton-Wenham to the team title over Bishop Feehan. Amazingly, H-W averaged 19:33 for its top five runners, and Feehan averaged 19:53.
The Bay State League was well represented in D1 and D2.
In D1, it was all individuals. Natick's Becca White, a classy XC runner for four years, finished 5th overall in 18:45. Framingham senior Camille Murphy (19:12) and Brookline sophomore Leah Gellineau (19:13) were both in the medals, finishing 13th and 14th overall. Natick senior Caitlyn Maclellan (20:32) was 53rd. Framingham sophomore Sara Bowhill (20:38) and Newton North's Carolyn Ranti (20:39) were 58th and 60th, respectively.
In D2, it was all teams, as Wellesley placed 3rd and Milton took 7th. I also want to say an individual congratulations to Wellesley senior and captain Alison Griswold, who was Wellesley's fifth runner. I will miss her great XC articles in the Wellesley paper.
2 comments:
Great job by Steve McChesney molding that team together, which I know included letting Dahlberg make her own decision about doing x-c. We saw the best ever boy's team last year(Brookline) and the best ever girl's team this year.
I'm really glad that you took the first paragraph to acknowledge Kelsey Karys.
She's a very soft-spoken individual and would never tell you about her own accomplishments. I feel like she's been looked over the past few years. I'm very glad others have been aware of her progression.
She's a great kid who just loves to run. You can tell by that smile she has while she is racing. She has done great things for Newton South.
What I find interesting with this team is that I never know who is going to be 1st for their team on any given day!
Although Kelsey was a leader and won most dual meets and won DCLS, Madeleine was 1st for the team at Emass, and Bridget was 1st for the team at States. The big 3 give this team a ridiculous amount of depth.
Like Peter said,
Congrats to Steve McChesney and the NS girls!
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