This past weekend, summer decided to make its final curtain call on one of the busiest cross country weekends of the season. From New York to Manchester, we saw a wide representation of New England teams toe the line in some hot and exciting races. Every region offered events for your cross country fix, whether it was Friday or Saturday. The Meet of the Week for Mass Milesplit was the Frank Kelley Invitational, but that doesn’t mean we weren’t working hard to bring you coverage from races throughout the area. Here is a recap of the major meets that took place in New England this weekend.
Ocean State X-C Invitational (Warwick, RI)
Over the course of 48 hours, about 5,000 middle and high school runners traversed the trails of Godard State Park in Warwick, RI. At high noon on Saturday, the Boys Championship Race fired off and a little over 16 minutes later, a trio of Massachusetts boys had swept the top three. From the crack of the starter’s pistol, it was quite obvious that Quinn Cooney of Chelmsford and Dan Romano of Mansfield were going to make it a two-man show. Despite temperatures in the 80’s at the start of the race, Cooney kept his mind on the task at hand. “The heat was a factor. It wasn’t a big factor, but warming up, my warmup was a little shorter, a little brisk. I just tried to keep it out of my mind and concentrate on the race.” Cooney bode his time well and when the Chelmsford duo hit two miles, the race was on. “The last mile is when I started to make my move. I made a hard move, a definitive move. That was my plan from the start.”
Over the course’s last mile, Cooney opened up an 11-second gap on Romano and crossed the line in 15:45. Romano held on to second place and ran a respectable time of 15:56. Not too far behind Romano was Jameson Koeman of Whitinsville, who crossed the line in 16:09—good for third place. Cooney not only had a noteworthy victory, his time was also a 25-second course PR from his 16:11 race last year. Chelmsford coach Brian Crane saw Cooney’s race as his first test of the fall. “Today was a big day for Quinn to see where he stood. We have kind of just run against our own conference right now. Today was to see where he is on the map against other kids from other states. We were kind of anxious to see where we were at this point of the season.” Coach Crane should now be able to breathe a sigh of relief, as Quinn certainly made a statement for this upcoming fall.
In the team competition, Robbinsville HS ran away with the title, scoring 55 points to St. Johns Shrewsbury’s 117 points. Hamilton Wenham was fifth with 151 points and the 2013 All State D1 Champion Mansfield HS was a distant sixth with 157 points.
While the Boys Championship race was certainly the highlight of the meet, there were still commendable performances on Saturday. In the Boys Small School Varsity D1 race, Jeremy Spiezio (Greenwich HS, NY) ran the second-fastest time of the day with his 15:47 victory. Taking second place behind Spezio was Nick Steele of Bromfield running 16:14. Adam Petti of West Bridgewater rounded out the top three while crossing the line in 16:30. In the Boys Varsity D2 race, Framingham was the top Massachusetts team with 211 points and a sixth-place finish. Leading Framingham was Mike McDonald who crossed the line in 16:48 for third place. McDonald’s teammate Andrew Harrod snagged fifth place with a time of 17:00. In the Boys Freshman races, Massachusetts boys accomplished a clean sweep. Brandon Hall of Hopedale took the D1 race in 13:35 and Cameron Leonard of Central Catholic took the D2 race in 13:46.
The Girls Championship Race was a one-girl show with Gabrielle Richichi of New Fairfield HS, CT. Richichi shot off from the line refusing to look back, winning in a time of 18:23—twenty-one seconds over her closest competitor. Emily Weigand of Hamilton-Wenham was the highest-placing girl from Massachusetts, crossing the line in 19:15 for eighth. With her 19:30 performance, Rylee Gillen of Nashoba Regional rounded out the top ten. In the team race, reigning Connecticut State Champion Tolland HS rolled to victory with 49 points over Red Bank Catholic’s 79 points. Bishop Feehan cracked into the top three with 128 points and Hamilton-Wenham, the 2013 D2 All State Champs, was fifth with 136 points.
In the Girls Varsity D2 race, we saw a near replica of the Championship Race; Rebbeca Grusby of Newtown South rolled to victory in 18:40 and was almost a minute in front of her closest competitor, fellow Bay State runner, Elizabeth Costantino. Constantino of Notre Dame-Hingham took second place in a time of 19:31. Crossing the line in seventh place and a time of 20:17 was Shelby Aarden of Hopkinton. Aarden’s top-ten finish helped lead the ladies of Hopkinton to a team victory with 121 points. Notre Dame-Hingham finished third with 133 points and Dracut finished fifth with 197 points.
Manchester Invitational (Manchester, NH)
The Manchester Invitational turned forty years old this year and it was one of the hottest race days in the meet’s long history. At race time, temperatures soared up to the mid-80’s, making the looming hills of Derryfield Park that much tougher. While many Massachusetts teams competed in-state or headed to RI this past weekend, a few did travel north for the Manchester Invite. In the Boys Large School race, Chris Skelly of North Middlesex took fifth place in 16:21. Given the temperature and course, this was a very respectable opener for Skelly, the defending Mass Central Division Champion.
In the Girls Small School Race, the Tigers of Tyngsborough were led by Jaylan Fraser-Mines who finished fourth in 19:36. Teammate Kerri Keohane placed tenth in a time of 19:58. With the solid efforts of Fraser-Mines and Keohane, Tyngsborough finished fourth overall with 211 points.
Miscellaneous
This weekend, the girls of Weston HS traversed south to the famous Bowdoin Park for the Bowdoin XC Classic. Leading the charge for the Wildcats was Jillian Howard, who finished sixth in a respectable time of 20:35. Howard’s teammate Emma Eglinton finished 19th in a time of 21:57. Weston finished fifth as a team with 160 points.
