Rockets Score Big Wins in Defeat of Wildcats

Wednesday September 19th on a beautiful fall afternoon the NHS cross country teams beat perennial powerhouse Weymouth in what was expected to be a battle on the boys side and what turned out to be a bit of an upset on the girls'.

The boys' varsity race started conservatively with a large hill looming in the first mile of the Houghton's Pond course.  For the first 2 miles, Needham's Adrian Amaya, Tyler Hagen (running his first race of the season) and Tommy Kelley shadowed Weymouth's top runners Nolan Parsley and Matt Murphy and Milton's Nick Orlando.  Following closely behind, ran Jake Jensen and Zach Prescott of Weymouth and John Benner, Mike Newfield, Alex Elman, Liam Walsh, Ben Baron and Alex Turner continually jockeying for position.

During the final loop of the course, Parsley and Amaya pulled away from the field before Parsley ultimately kicked to the win.  Hagen held on to third and Kelley had a huge finish to hold off Murphy in a key swing in points.  Benner and Newfield ran very gutsy races and finished in the top ten to round out the Rockets scoring.  Overall, Needham got nine athletes across the line before Weymouth's fifth illustrating for the second week in a row the benefit of depth in their 25-32 win over the Wildcats.  Milton was never a factor in the team scoring with the Rockets winning 18-45.

Adrian kicking hard!

Liam continues a solid season.

Tyler finishes strong.

Meanwhile, the girls were getting ready for their own showdown.  After numerous motivational speeches from captains, coaches and teammates, the race finally got underway.  Needham co-captain Caroline Turner and Weymouth super-soph Ashley Betts rocketed to the front and ran clear from the field almost immediately.  The race was anticipated to be a hard fought battle from gun to tape but as the field approached the halfway point, something looked amiss with the Wildcats.  Behind the leaders, ran freshmen Margie Cullen of Needham and Kacie Higgins of Weymouth and then excitingly and almost inexplicably the Rockets took over with sophomore Katie Horton and freshmen Sarah Armstrong and Julianna Donovan filling in the gap.  On this occasion, Needham benefited greatly from the youthful exuberance of its underclassmen while Weymouth seniors Morgan Fitzgibbon and Molly Barker (admittedly making her return from injury) never seemed to settle into their roles as leading contenders.  When all was said and done, Needham finished 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 6th and 7th to down the Wildcats 23-33.  Similarly to the boys' race Milton was outclassed and the Rockets swept the top seven places winning 15-50.

Margie Cullen and Katie Horton lead the way.

Sarah Armstrong and Rachel Blaustein

The JV race went equally well for the boys' team with Needham taking the top eight places and 13 of the top 16!  Right from the gun the Rockets began to break away from their competition and by the finish line, Needham had executed perfect pack running to finish seven athletes within a ten second spread with senior Brendan Gillis leading the way and finishing the 2.4 mile course in 14:45.

Next up for the Rockets is the Amherst Invitational on Saturday September 22nd at Hampshire College.  The first race of the day is scheduled to begin at 10:00 a.m.

Full results can be found at: http://www.athletic.net/CrossCountry/School.aspx?SchoolID=19349.

Photos courtesy of Rich Benner