For a few seconds yesterday, the crush of runners into the finishing chutes at Franklin Park reached its frenetic peak. In the span of six seconds, twenty-one runners crossed the finish line, piling up together in a sweaty, exhausted corridor of boides.
Near the end of that traffic jam, Brookline's Aaron Klein had to wonder whether he had finished far enough up in the standings. With so many runners finishing, a person can lose perspective and think that half of the runners in Massachusetts are in that chute ahead of him.
Klein, it turned out, had finished 83rd overall, 53rd in the team scoring. As Brookline's fifth man, his 53 points -- added to the 57 points from the four teammates who had finished in the previous minute -- was enough. The Warriors 110 points was 37 ahead of runner-up Lowell, and Brookline had won its second straight State Championship.
The D1 race was fast, as were all the races on a relatively mild day at Franklin Park. In boys D1, eight runners went under 16:00 led by St. John (Shrewsbury)'s Jonathan Green who held off Marshfield's Joel Hubbard, 15:41 to 15:42. Brookline's Chernet Sisay and Mark Perry finished 12th and 13th, and were given the same time of 16:11. Evan Strenstein (27th, 16:35) and Matt Goroff (51st, 16:54) were the other Brookline scorers.
Newton North's Justin Keefe, competing as an individual, placed 88th in 17:12.
Boys D1 Results on Cool Running
In the Boys D2 race, defending champion Pembroke had its top four runners score 1st, 5th, 6th, and 13th, but incredibly, that wasn't enough to win. Bishop Feehan's top five all finished under 17 minutes with a gap of only 23 seconds to wrest the title away by a mere two points.
Had it been a dual meet between the two schools, Pembroke would have had it won before Feehan's first runner had crossed the line. Indeed, Feehan's sixth and seventh runners also contributed to the singlet-thin victory, finishing ahead of Pembroke's fifth man.
Boys D2 Results
In the Girls D1 race, Peabody's Catarina Rocha crushed the field, running 18:12 and finishing half a minute ahead of Longmeadow's Camille Blackman.
Whitman Hanson's top five finished within 20 seconds of each other, from 19:27 to 19:47, as the Panthers rolled to the State title with 93 points, far ahead of runner-up Wachusett (168), and defending state champs Weymouth (177).
Evie Heffernan competed for Newton North, placing a strong 26th in 19:43.
Girls D1 Results
In Girls D2, Bishop Feehan made its case as the best team in the state, as their top five girls averaged 19:16, scoring a mere 63 points, which was 16 ahead of an excellent Hamilton-Wenham team.
The Shamrocks were led by senior Katie Powell and sophomore Abbey McNulty, who finished 2nd and 3rd overall in 18:44.
Girls D2 Results
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2 comments:
Great recap! Thanks Jon
Congrats to brookline on a great season.
I always felt they had a certain swagger to them that made them great. They always seemed to walk into a meet and say "we are the best here". As someone who faced them multiple times a year I hated that cockiness but the reason I hated it so much was because I knew they were right.
It was something that motivated me and my entire team every day. Nothing felt better than winning a race verse brookline because you truly knew you beat the best.
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