October 31, 2011

10/29/11 - Bay State League Meet Results

On Saturday, the Bay State League held it's XC championship meet at Norwood. The timing was fortunate; a few hours later, Massachusetts was in the midst of a Nor'easter that brought rain and heavy wet snow to the whole East Coast. By Sunday morning, there were several inches of snow on the ground hundreds of thousands had lost power. That storm cancelled many weekend events, including several road races, but Saturday's league meet was already in the books by then.

At Norwood, the Brookline boys and Weymouth girls left no doubt that they were the top teams in the league.

In the boys race, Brookline's Chernet Sisay (15:59) held off Walpole's Zach Ganshirt (16:03) for the win, and the Warriors placed five runners in the top ten to run away with the team title. Walpole (93 points) earned the runner-up spot ahead of Newton North (105) and Weymouth (110).

(Point totals might not be accurate, as I understand there was at least one mistake in the results.)

In the girls race, Wellesley's Priyanka Fouda followed her runner-up finish from last year with a win in 2011, taking the race in 19:10, half a minute in front of Weymouth's Ashley Betts and Julie Tevenen. The Wildcats would go on to place four runners in the top eight and win easily, with Needham second and Brookline third. Newton North's Evie Heffernan was fourth overall, leading the Tigers to a fifth-place team finish.

This was the first year that the Bay State league meet included not only a JV race, but a race for freshmen. Newton North's Isabella Reilly won the 2500m girls race in 10:25, while Brookline's Ethan Goroff won the boy's race in 8:55. Brookline boys also took the top six places in the JV race and had the top finisher in the 2500m mixed co-ed run to make a clean sweep of the awards.

Results can be found on Cool Running here:

Bay State XC Championships - Individual and Team results

October 26, 2011

BHS vs. NNHS Today

Newton North XC hosts Brookline today, as the defending D1 State Champion Warriors seek to wrap up another undefeated season and another Bay State league title. The Tigers go into the match-up with a 9-1 record, their one loss coming to Walpole at Cold Springs Park earlier in the season.

It will be the final home meet for NNHS seniors, including Justin Keefe, who has won four meets this year already. He'll have quite a challenge in Chernet Sisay, who is coming off his win at the McIntyre Twilight Invitationals, where he finished just ahead of teammate Mark Perry.

On the girls side, NN sophomore Evie Heffernan has run 19:52 this year and is the favorite for the individual win, but Brookline appears to have far more depth up front and is the favorite to win the meet.

Good luck to all teams, and best wishes for the class of 2012, who are competing for the last time at Cold Springs Park.

October 22, 2011

Remembering Sarah Philipps (1968 - 1988)

The death of Muammar al-Gaddafi in Libya this week prompted NNHS Historian Josh Seeherman to write a somber note remembering Sarah Philipps, one of the victims of the 1988 bombing that killed 259 people on Pan Am Flight 103 and 11 more people on the ground in Lockerbie, Scotland.

A 1986 graduate of Newton North H.S. and a Track and Field athlete there, Sarah Philipps attended the University of Colorado and participated in Syracuse University's London Studies program in the fall of 1988. She was 20 years old when she boarded Flight 103 at Heathrow Airport on Dec. 21st, 1988, to return home for the Christmas holidays. She died when the plane exploded in mid-air over Lockerbie, killing all aboard.

The Philipps family established a scholarship in Sarah's name at Colorado that continues to this day, and has enabled over twenty CU undergraduates to study abroad over the past two decades. In addition, Syracuse University created 35 Remembrance Scholarships to honor the 35 victims from the Syracuse program who were on the flight. In 2009 one of those scholars, Kate Callahan, who had been inspired by Sarah's love of athletics, organized a 3.5-mile Remembrance run for the 35 students.

Josh went on to write of his connection to Sarah. She had been a camp counselor at the Meadowbrook Day Camp in Weston, which he attended, and had also been one of the last groups of students to attend the old Claflin Elementary School, a quarter of a mile up Lowell Avenue from the site of the old Newton North building. NNHS runners pass the old school almost every day as they head out for their runs on Comm Ave.

October 11, 2011

BSL Alumni Results 10/8/11-10/10/11

Columbus Day Weekend featured three big running events in the Boston area standing out among the the usual fare of local road and cross-country races.

New England XC Championships

On Saturday, Franklin Park hosted the Collegiate New England Championships on a day that felt more like summer than fall. In all, almost 1200 runners competed in the varsity and sub-varsity races. It was fun to see so many former Mass. high school stars in the race, and, in addition, there were quite a few alumni from Bay State league schools. I apologize in advance for missing any BSL runners, but here is a list of names that I recognized from the results:

Women's 5K:

Rebecca White 18:04 (Natick '09)
Amanda Waldron 19:09 (Walpole '10)
Jessica Kaliski 19:27 (Wellesley '11)
Anna Lukes 19:55 (Wellesley '08)
Jill Corcoran 20:15 (Weymouth '11)
Marlis Gnirke 20:47 (Wellesley '08)
Maria Grandoni 21:17 (Framingham '11)

Men's 8K:

Stephen Sollowin 26:15 (Weymouth '11)
Sam Miller 26:32 (Needham '08)
Jerzy Eisenberg-Guyot 26:59 (Brookline '07)
Romey Sklar 27:22 (Brookline '11)
Seb Putzeys 27:25 (Newton North '08)
Chris Mercurio 27:29 (Brookline '08)

BAA Half-Marathon

From the time the last race was over on Saturday, crews at Franklin Park began setting up the start/finish area for the BAA half marathon to be held the next day.

The BAA half has become one of the most popular races on the New England calendar with over 5000 entrants. The top spots went to Ethiopia's Al Abdosh (1:03:36), Kenya's and Liberty University grad Sam Chelanga (1:03:41), and a several other Kenyan runners. Top American was Boston College grad and Mass. native Tim Ritchie, who finished 7th in (1:05:29).

I looked for BSL alums in the results but didn't recognize any names.

Tufts 10K

On Columbus Day Monday, 6500 women and girls took the starting line for the 35th annual Tufts 10K for women.

Janet Cherobon-Bawcom won the race in 32:47, a day after winning the BAA Half in 1:11:58. That's quite a double!

There were at least two BSL alumnae in the race, although one of them was running under an assumed name. Here are the two I recognized. Anyone know of any other BSL athletes who raced?

Brielle Chabot, 37:02 (Wellesley '07)
Joni Waldron, 50:01 (NNHS '02)

(A special shout-out to Joni who ran her first official 10K on limited training and still managed 8:00 miles and a fierce kick at the end.)

October 08, 2011

College XC:
2011 New England Championships Today

The 2011 NEICAAA Cross Country Championships, aka, New Englands, take place this morning at Franklin Park in Boston, on the following schedule:

11:00 am    Women's Sub Varsity 5k
11:45 am Men's Sub Varsity 8k
12:30 pm Women's Varsity 5k
1:15 pm Men's Varsity 8k


This is one of the few meets that brings together DI, DII, and DIII teams, and offers a great chance to see former Mass. H.S. runners strutting their stuff for their college teams.

October 03, 2011

Barnicle 7th in USA 10-Mile Championships

Only two weeks after his half marathon debut, NNHS alum Chris Barnicle was back on the roads competing at the USA 10-mile championships in the Twin Cities on Sunday. The result was another outstanding race, as he placed 7th overall in a time of 47:06, just twenty seconds behind winner Mo Trafeh.

Here's a link to the race finish video:

USA Running Circuit - USARunningCircuit.com - USARC Official Site - Videos - Mens and Womens Finish - Live Webcast Replay - USA 10 Mile Championships 2011