Rockets Defeat Natick; Dismantle Norwood

JV boys getting ready at the start.

Emily Wills runs in the rain.

Wednesday October 10th, the Rockets traveled across town to Elm Bank Reservation in Natick to take on the Red and Blue and the Mustangs and both boys' and girls' teams came away victorious.  The varsity boys' race took an unusual direction with Natick opting to run a tempo and sacrifice the meet in preparation for their dual with Walpole next week.  The Rockets had been planning on marking the pace of their rivals but after a slow first mile on the pancake-flat course it was apparent that Natick was not prepared to rise to the occasion.  Meanwhile Norwood, a program that has struggled in recent years, was never a part of the equation.  The Rockets ran together as a pack and finished 1-9 on the 2.5 mile course to beat both teams 15-50.  Captain Zak Heier was officially given the win in a time of 14:54.  Finishing with the senior were, Alex Turner, John Benner, Alex Elman, Liam Walsh, Brendan Gillis, Adrian Amaya, Tyler Hagen and Tommy Kelley.

Varsity boys get down to business.

A mere half hour earlier, freshman Drew Khalaj led the way in the JV race upping the tempo during the later stages to get the victory.  In a highly unusual situation, Khalaj's winning time of 14:24 turned out to be the fastest time on the day by a full 30 seconds!  Finishing behind the fleet freshman were a large group of Needham athletes taking places 3-12.  The JV race also set the stage for a dominant effort by the Lady Rockets as they took 6 of the top 10 spots.  The race was led from start to finish by junior Daria Fortin making her return from injury and getting the win in 18:03.  Sophomore Claire Connors crossed the finish line next to make it a Needham one, two.

Varsity girls run tough against Sarah Lagan.

The varsity girls race was expected to be an easy affair with the plan being to group up and run with Natick's top finisher.  As it turned out, no one knew about sophomore transfer Sarah Lagan who ran to the front and stayed there for the entirety of the 2.5 mile race.  Shadowing the Natick stand-out were senior captain Caroline Turner and freshmen Margie Cullen, Sarah Armstrong and Julianna Donovan.  With less than a half mile remaining, the Rockets began to pull away but Lagan hung tough and ended up out kicking the quartet to the finish line winning in 15:36.  Natick's Erin Murphy finished in 6th place and closing out the scoring for the Rockets were senior captain Hallie Armstrong in 7th, sophomore Katie Horton in 8th and junior Rachel Blaustein in 10th.  Needham won the meet beating Natick 21-40 and Norwood 15-49 to extend their conference record to 9-0!

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

Saturday October 13th, the Rockets travel to Falmouth to compete in the 2nd Annual Bob McIntyre Twilight Invitational at Barnstable Fair Grounds.

Order of Races:

4:30pm            9^th Grade Boys                                    2.1 miles
4:45pm            9^th Grade Girls                                    2.1 miles
5:05pm            10^th Grade Boys                                  3.1 miles
5:25pm            10^th Grade Girls                                  3.1 miles
5:55pm            J.V. Girls                                             3.1 miles
6:25pm            J.V. Boys                                            3.1 miles
6:50pm            Girls Varsity    large schools                3.1 miles
7:20pm            Girls Varsity   small schools                3.1 miles
7:50pm            Boys Varsity  large schools                 3.1 miles
8:25pm            Boys Varsity   small schools               3.1 miles