The Hopkins XC teams traveled to Groton, MA for the NEPSTA championship races on Saturday, November 12. At last year's races, the boys came in second, and the girls, for the first time in eight years, first. This year, however, was potentially more difficult. League realignment changed the size of our division, and in the girls' race, quite considerably. Last year's boys' race had 15 teams, and this year's featured 17. More dramatically, however, the girls' race would see a field of 15 teams, whereas last year's contained only 10.
The first race of the day was the girls' varsity race. On a deceptively pleasant day (portions of the course were extremely muddy, to the point where many competitors lost one or both shoes along the way), the "Magnificent Seven" ran a dominating race. Freshmen Hannah Springhorn and Isabel Balcezak crossed the line in 2nd and 3rd, in times of 19:32 and 19:36, followed shortly after by junior Lucy Balcezak in 19:59 for 7th place. Senior captain Kathryn Farrell followed soon in 16th place in 20:38, a personal best, even though she almost lost one of her shoes and had to jam her foot back into her spikes in mid-stride. Senior captain Margaux Sica rounded out the scoring in 23rd place in 21:07, running in a pack with senior captain Erin Rosenberg in 24th place in 21:11, and senior Sarah Muskin in 25th, in 21:13. In a field this big, it can be somtimes be hard to tell exactly how the scoring went, and who won until the places have been tallied up. This was not the case this time, as team victory was clear pretty much as soon as our fifth runner crossed the line. When the places had been counted, however, the story was fairly decisive. Hopkins scored 51 points to the second place team's 103. The girls also ran an average time about 50 seconds faster (20:10) than that of that next team, and about 4:00 faster cumulatively as well. The girls capped a triumphant season with a splendid race. By finishing in the top 20, Hannah, Isabel, Lucy, and Katie earned All-New-England status, as well as a berth in next week's all-star race.
The boys varsity lined up next. Despite struggling a bit during the middle and end of the season with upper-respiratory difficulties, senior captain Matt Klein was looking to win his first overall NEPSTA XC championship race title, which eluded him last year when he came in second. As was the case last year, this boys' team had only one true superstar. Last year's success was based in large part on the consistency of the rest of the varsity, which had proven itself time and again deep and capable enough to support Matt's stellar performances up front. Going into this race, this was not necessarily the case. Junior Calvin Park and senior Teddy Haines had run varsity last year, but Dan McCabe, Robbie Emmet, and James Regan-Mochrie had not, and in fact, James would be running in the varsity seven for the first time ever. Further, senior captain Andrew Segraves, last year's #2 runner, was coming back from an injury that had hampered him all season, and prevented him from starting all but two races to that point.
Matt was not to be denied, pulling away from the field, and running a sparkling 16:14 for first place, as well as a course record by almost 30 seconds. Behind him, Calvin finished in 13th in 17:26, and Dan and Teddy came in together at 17 and 18, in 17:39 and 17:40. Robbie rounded out the scoring in 45th place in 18:25, the same time that James recorded for 46th, and Andrew ran a solid race in 18:36, particularly impressive given the fact that he had barely been able to run more than about 3 miles in practice until that very week. With those solid performances, the team was able to earn its second straight 2nd place finish at our biggest race of the year.
The girls' jv race was next, and Hopkins produced excellent performances. Freshman Natalie Davis-Porada won the race in 22:44, followed closely by Emma Speer in 22:51. Freshman Emily Koleske was 5th in 23:05, a personal best by about a minute and a half. Etana Solomon ran her best race of the season in 23:52, and Erika Trapp, last year about a 30:00 runner, also set a personal record in 23:56. Rachel Wishnie-Edwards, Kaitlin Hickey, Allison Hellman, Caroline Armstrong, and Emily Patton also ran good races, and Hopkins won the JV girls' race as a team.
In the boys' jv race, an excellent performance for what looked like third place in about 18:35 or so by freshman Jarett Poliner was nullified by disqualification, as he accidentally went to the wrong side of a flag after slipping in the mud and scrambling to his feet. Fellow freshman Johanan Knight ran an excellent 18:54 for 9th place, and Micah Margolis and Jake Poliner came in 17th and 18th. Tanner Marsh was 21st and Nader Rastegar 25th. Tyler Roth ran a personal record for 43rd. Avi Mahajan and Connor Abbot also ran bests for 73rd and 78th place. Griffin Smilow, returning from injury, ran a solid race as well. The jv boys finished 4th (and would have tied for second were it not for Jarett's unfortunate disqualification, from a mistake which gained him absolutely no competitive advantage).
All in all, it was a fantastic day for Hopkins cross country. The girls finished a season that may have been the best in the history of the program, and the boys, who looked somewhat mediocre at the start of the season, ran superb races, and showed that they should never be underestimated. With strong JV performances on both sides, the future also looks very bright indeed.
Miguel Pizarro
Varsity Team results:
Girls:
Hopkins 51
Winsor 103
Suffield 105
Groton 168
BB&N 171
Governor's Academy 194
Thayer 213
Worcester 214
Kent 224
Berkshire 253
Williston 260
Sacred Heart 266
St. Mark's 267
Westminster 360
Tabor 378
Boys:
St Mark's 63
Hopkins 94
Governor's Academy 126
Tabor 130
Cushing 149
Worcester 162
Roxbury Latin 180
Williston 198
Groton 250
BB&N 255
Westminster 307
Nobles 324
Thayer 334
Kent 335
Suffield 348
Berkshire 417
Salisbury 420
