NHSXC traveled out west to Hampshire College to participate in the 17th
Annual Amherst Invitational and came home with hardware. First up on
the race course for the Rockets were the Freshman Boys who set the tone
for the day finishing second to Wachusett out of a total of 14 teams
competing in the race. The group of underclassmen, showing much promise
for the future of the program, were led by John Benner shattering the
18:00 barrier and finishing second overall in a stellar time of 17:33 on
the five kilometer course. Backing up Benner were Alex Turner in 7th
(18:08), Drew Khalaj in 10th (18:18) and Alex Cohen in 12th (18:27), all
fantastic times for first year competitors. Rounding out the team were
Shelton Daal, Ben Mesnik, Stephen Park and Matt Heier.
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| Freshmen boys after their 2nd place team finish. |
The perennial trip out to Amherst has been kind to the varsity girls'
program in the last couple years as they've finished third and second.
2012 continued the trend as the girls snagged another second place
finish running with a conservative race strategy of going out at a
controlled pace and reeling in their competition during the second
half. The girls' team was led by senior co-captain Caroline Turner who
finished in 15th place overall with a personal best time of 19:28.
Behind the senior, the youth of the team continued to compete at a level
well beyond their experience with freshman Margie Cullen finishing
25th, sophomore Katie Horton 26th and freshmen Julianna Donovan and
Sarah Armstrong 35th and 38th respectively. There was a mere 51 second spread across the top five athletes with an average time of 20:01 for the 5k course!
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| Caroline Turner |
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| Sarah Armstrong and Julianna Donovan |
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| Claire Connors |
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| The varsity boys team prepares to race. |
Next up were the varsity boys and given a similar race strategy they were able to put some solid performances on the board. Junior Adrian Amaya continues to show much promise as he placed fifth overall running 16:10, the fastest 5k time by an NHS athlete this century. Senior Tyler Hagen continued his strong start to the season placing 26th and running 16:47. Backing up the duo were juniors Tommy Kelley and Alex Elman and senior Ben Baron. The varsity boys finished 8th in team scoring, their highest placing of the last five years.
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| Adrian Amaya on his way to a 5th place finish. |
Closing out the meet for the Rockets were the girls' and boys' JV races. The girls finished a respectable 12th place in team scoring being led by Norwegian exchange student Marie Leirvaag who finished in 68th place in a time of 24:18. Meanwhile, the boys continued to show the depth of their squad finishing four in the top 25 and second overall in team scoring. The JV squad was led by sophomore Derek Howes in a time of 18:25 and 12 of 17 athletes in the race set personal best times.
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JV boys sprint off the line.
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Next on the schedule for Needham is a dual meet at Cutler Park against Brookline Thursday September 27th with the varsity boys scheduled to run first at 4:00 p.m.
Full results can be found at:
http://www.amherstxc.org/invitational/index.html
Photos courtesy of Kim Benner
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