Wellesley High, a team that has a chance to do a considerable amount of damage in the Bay State this fall, made a bold statement on Saturday
Despite what head coach Tim Broe classified as a somewhat flat race, the Red Raiders ran away with the team title in the Championship race of the Ocean State X-C Invitational. Wellesley had all five of its scoring runners among the first 30 placements and scored just 79 points. Finishing second was Hopewell Valley (NJ) with 111 points. Mansfield was third with 128 points. St. John Prep, behind an individual victory from Tristen Shelgren, was fourth overall with 153 points.
Wellesley was led by Thomas Weiss, who placed eighth overall in 16:21.72. Matthew Cervon was 11th (16:24.53) and Colby Zarle was 16th (16:31.29) for the Red Raiders. Rounding out the scoring was Zach Barry (21st, 16:43.04) and Jason Norris (30th, 16:55.53).
The race for the individual title turned into a dogfight between Shelgren and Mason Gatewood of Saint Anthony's (NY). After a quick 4:45 opening mile, the two broke from a small pack and engaged in a back-and-forth battle to the finish. Shelgren took the lead for a brief time at mile 2 and after trailing Gatewood by just a few strides during the closing 600 meters, blasted past his NY rival with just 50 meters remaining to win with a time of 15:31.33. Gatewood settled for second at 15:31.60. Liam Higgins of Goshen (NJ) was third at 15:56.41. Massachusetts claimed the next two positions with Mansfield's Kalin Petrov (fourth, 16:00.65) and Hopedale's Brandon Hall (fifth, 16:02.14) securing a top-five placement.
In the girls' Championship race, Tewksbury's Rachel Sessa was eighth overall in 18:57.88. The race was won by Kelsey Chmiel of Saratoga Springs (NY) in a meet record of 17:34.70.