At the Bay State Invitational

Thoughts gathered while spectating at Franklin Park on Saturday...

Newton North's Carolyn Ranti looked terrific winning the Div I Freshman Girls Race. Her time of 12:06 for 3K is the fastest in the Girls' freshman race at this meet in over five years...with the exception of the 11:49 run by Bromfield freshman Emily Jones in the Div II race in the morning. The North freshman did quite well, finishing 3rd in the Div I team scoring.

Matias Carrasco failed to finish the Boys Div I varsity race (bad ankle). With Matias, Brookline is a formidable team. Without him, they are still good, but other teams are better. Will he be healthy for the NNHS v. Brookline dual meet on October 25th?

You can't always draw conclusions about the rest of the season from the times run at the Bay State meet. Some runners will improve by a minute or more over 5K. Other slip backward. In his sophomore year, Chris Barnicle ran 16:32 at this meet and finished 7th. Five weeks later he ran 15:53 and won the EMass Div I meet.

Jess Barton struggled. She wasn't the only runner who had a tough time. Bay State rival Weymouth's Becca MacDonald, who has been running terrific times all Fall, faded badly and finished far back. It happens.

Among BSC teams, Weymouth's boys had a sub-par meet. Only two of their runners broke 18:00, and their #3 guy dropped out with 400m to go. Apparently Wellesley's girls and boys teams skipped the meet to prepare for the meet against Newton on Oct. 5th.

The Amherst girls look very good. So do the Newton South girls.

Throw in Geovanni Timberlake, tehir fourth man, and the Brockton boys look very strong with four runners well under 17:00. Cambridge shocked everyone by winning the Boys Div I team race. They better find a sixth man or hope their top five stay healthy. Their fifth man on Saturday ran 17:05... their sixth man ran 18:29.

Colleen Weatherbee of Dennis Yarmouth broke 19:00 and looked like she could go faster. She will give Jess a run for her money when both are healthy.