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| Alex Turner on his way to a 2nd place finish. |
Tuesday October 2nd the Rockets hosted their second home meet of the season competing against Newton North and Walpole on a muddy, rain soaked course. The meet began with a co-ed JV race which saw Alex Turner finish in second place overall and and just miss breaking the 18:00 barrier with a solid effort of 18:04 on the 5k course. Backing up Turner's tough run was Brendan Gillis in 3rd, Drew Khalaj in 4th, Alex Cohen in 6th, Alex Caswell in 7th, and Jeff Ewing in 9th finishing six in the top ten and once again displaying the depth of the team. In an unofficial scoring of the JV meet, Needham beat Newton North 22-36 and racked up a perfect score of 15-50 against Walpole. In the girls' race, Haley Rayment led the way finishing 79th in 24:05 and improving her personal record by 16 seconds. With 132 athletes to officially finish, the JV race went on record as the largest field ever to compete at Cutler Park.
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| Jacob Anderson running tough. |
By the time all the sticks had been collected, names had been written down and times transcribed from stopwatch to score sheet, the varsity boys race was well underway. Newton North took the pace out hard with Gabe Montague surging to the front and covering the first mile in 5:02. Not to be outdone, Needham's Adrian Amaya followed in hot pursuit keeping the gap on his opponent to just six seconds. Behind the two front runners were Tyler Hagen and Tommy Kelley amidst a pack of Tiger athletes. As the race neared the halfway point, Amaya was looking considerably more comfortable than Montague but Newton North looked to be in control of the team standings. Ultimately, Amaya pulled away from his competition for the second week in a row and broke his own course record set a mere 5 days ago by winning in 16:25. Montague finished four seconds back with the Rockets taking places 1, 4, 7, 9 and 10 and narrowly losing to the Tigers 24-31. The race between Needham and Walpole never materialized to be much of a contest with the Rockets taking down the Rebels 19-38.
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| Liam Walsh fights for the lead. |
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| The varsity boys staying loose before their race. |
With two races down and one to go, the course was in considerably worse condition for the start of the varsity girls race. None-the-less as the gun went off, Needham and Newton North surged to the front leaving most of the Walpole team in their wake. An elite group of Needham's Caroline Turner, Newton North's Sonya Jampel and Evie Heffernan and Walpole's Gina Conti quickly established themselves at the front of the pack. Following close behind were Margie Cullen, Sarah Armstrong, Julianna Donovan and Katie Horton amongst a crowd of black and orange singlets. Going into the meet, the Rockets knew the Tigers would be tough to beat but only time would tell just how difficult a task was in front of them. Turner, using the home course advantage and knowing she'd have to drop her competition early, pulled away from the other three athletes as she entered her second loop. By the time she'd reached the 2 mile mark, Turner had a five meter lead on Conti and considerably more on Jampel. Meanwhile, Cullen kept up a fierce pace and outran the opposition finishing one second behind her teammate. Turner and Cullen placed first and second overall running 19:36 and 19:37 respectively. Behind the dynamic duo, Armstrong finished in 7th place with a scintillating time of 19:56, while Donovan and Horton rounded out the top 5. Finishing in 17th and 24th places respectively were seniors Hallie Armstrong and Erica Koljonen making their return from injury. Both athletes are expected to add much appreciated depth and strength to the already impressive squad. In a meet that was defined by gutsy running and tough competition, the Lady Rockets came out on top by the slimmest of margins defeating Newton North 28-29 and Walpole 19-38 and keeping their dual meet win streak alive.
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| Margie Cullen and Sarah Armstrong run stride for stride. |
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| Captain Hallie Armstrong makes her return. |
Full results can be found at:
http://www.athletic.net/CrossCountry/School.aspx?SchoolID=19349
Next up for the Rockets is the 22nd Annual Woods Trail Run in Thetford, Vermont on Saturday October 6th. For anyone who finds themselves in the central Vermont region, the first race on the day for Needham will be the 2nd seed girls' race at 2:00 p.m.
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