The state produced its share of talented underclassmen last season. In their respective divisions at the Meet of Champions, nearly a dozen runners placed among the top 10.
Katherine Murray was one of them.
As a ninth-grader, the Norwell standout was the first across the line at the Division 3 Championships, clocking 18 minutes, 50.59 seconds for five-kilometers at Wrentham to lead the Clippers to the team title. Murray followed that victory with a bronze medal finish at the MOC.
Throughout the fall, the gifted harrier consistently placed near the front in major meets. She won freshmen titles at the Vineyard Invitational and Frank Mooney Invitational and also claimed the South Shore League crown. Murray broke 19 minutes four times for the 5K distance, doing so with first-place efforts at Div. 3A and South Shore (18:50.8), a runner-up finish in the Varsity A race at the Bay State XC Invitational (18:48.9), and a third-place showing in the Small/Medium School race at the Bob Glennon Twilight Invitational (18:26.6).
The Norwell sophomore will once again face familiar competition this season, both within her division and beyond. In 2024, five of the Clippers’ varsity athletes were sophomores or younger. At the Div. 3A meet, Murray narrowly held off fellow freshman Annabelle Averett of Swampscott (second, 18:53.37). Also among the top five were East Bridgewater’s Gabrielle Holdsworth (third, 19:13.53) and Greater Lowell Tech’s Teagan Galvanni (fifth, 19:20.77), who were seventh- and ninth-graders, respectively, last fall.
