With Labor Day coming later this year, two weeks of Cross Country seem to have flown by. While that didn’t provide a ton of action, there were two weekends of Invites as well as some interesting Dual Meets. With that said, there wasn’t too much fluctuation from our original preseason rankings:
- Brookline
- Cambridge
- Lexington
- Concord Carlisle
- Saint John’s Prep
- BC High
- Newton North
- Natick
- Groton Dunstable
- Reading
- Boston Latin Academy
- Catholic Memorial
- Parker Charter
- Longmeadow
- North Andover
- Arlington
- Oliver Ames
- Amherst Pelham
- Weston
- Greater Lowell Tech
Honorable Mentions: Hampshire, Belmont, Winchester, Newton South, Wellesley, Mt. Greylock, Xaverian
Newton North moves up ahead of Natick after defeating them in their first dual meet of the season. The caveat here is that Natick was not at full strength. Now hopefully they were resting some of their top guys and no one is dealing with injuries. Still, Newton North showed why many had them as their team to watch this year. Ryan Costello made it clear the transition to grass and trails after his breakout track season won’t be an issue. He opened with a state leading* 15:52. More on that leader.
The biggest movers were Catholic Memorial and Boston Latin Academy. The Knights returned to the Vineyard to defend their title, and they did just that, winning with an impressive score of 34. Gerard Stock was second overall with a PR of 16:05 with Daniel Kaleba just behind him at 16:08. Catholic Memorial will look to challenge Reading and Oliver Ames for the Division 1C title.
Boston Latin Academy won the MSTCA relays. While it’s hard to gauge their performance off time, they did top both Parker Charter and Amherst Pelham Regional. It was a solid debut as they look to defend their Division 2 title.
Greater Lowell Tech had an impressive won at the Marshvegas XC Classic on a rain filled Sunday. Their win moves them into #20 on our rankings.
There was also an interesting race out in Springfield, MA. While the Ted Dutkiewicz Invite isn’t new, the course is. And it produced some fast times to say the least.
Sophomore Trevor Sullivan of Granby won in 14:30. However, by his own admission (per athletic.net), the course was short. We won’t speculate on how long the course actually was, what we do know is that it was an impressive win. Sullivan topped Evan Hedlund of Frontier Regional. Hedlund happens to be the top overall returner from the Meet of Champions across all divisions. He ran 15:47 at Devens last year. While we’re not ready to hand the crown over after an early season win, Sullivan is clearly someone to watch. Last spring, running for South Hadley, he ran 9:30 as a freshmen.
The Hampshire boys got the team win on the short course with an impressive score of 33, proving they’re one’s to watch as well.
Coming up this week we have the Amherst Invitational as well as the Manchester Invitational. There’s a key dual meet between Brookline and Natick. The #1 Warriors looked strong in their opener against Needham so it’ll be worth keeping an eye on that. There’s also some great Middlesex League action as Lexington takes on Arlington next Tuesday, and Belmont takes on Winchester.
