2015 Black Bear Invitational Recap, Videos, Photos, Post Race Interviews

Results Link to Directathletics

Race Videos Courtesy of Greg Hall & Peter Addisano

Dave Scannell’s Photo Link for both Middle School and High School at bottom of post!

On a perfect fall day for racing, competition was heated at the 2015 Black Bear Invitational, which features a true, rolling cross country course for middle school, junior varsity and varsity races.

The middle schools kicked things off with Northwood School taking the girls title by a mere 5 points over defending champion Deerfield Community School.   The top 2 individual places were a repeat of last year with Caroline Fischer winning and Northwood’s Addison Cox placing second.  Fischer broke her own course record.  In what was the closest team race of the day, both Northwood and Deerfield displayed high school type packing in a seesaw battle.  After Cox, Deerfield took the next 3 places, only to see the Lakers return the favor taking places 6-8.  It was Northwood, however, who sealed the win by their 5th runner, Eva Roy taking 12th before Deerfield’s 4th and 5th runners.

On the boys’ side, Deerfield repeated as Ryan Devine continued his winning ways breaking the course record.  He was followed by teammate David Cook.  Northwood School raced to a strong second, also utilizing good packing by taking places 3rd-5th with Aidan Cox, Porter Heigis and Luke Tkaczyk.

The girls’ JV race was easily won by Hanover, who placed 5 of the top 11 spots, with Phillips Exeter 2nd.  Bishop Guertin’s  Alli O’Hara and Hanover’s Emily Bregou took the top 2 individual spots in 21:52 and 22:05 respectively.  The boys’ JV race was dominated by Coe-Brown, which scored a mere 20 points by placing 5 in the top 8.  A very patient Tristan Jardon (CBNA) easily took this one in 18:19 by racing hard over the second half of the course outdistancing his teammates Jacob Spainhower and Jacob Snow.

In the girls’ varsity race, Coe-Brown got back to their winning ways with 36 points to Bishop Guertin’s 61.  The Bears took 4 of the first 7 places.  Oyster River’s Maegan Doody continued her NH dominance taking down another course record in the process winning in 18:20.  She gradually pulled away from a game Elisabeth Danis, who also posted a very fast 18:43. Those two immediately took control of the race to pull away from a front pack of Susan Poore (Windham), Chloe Conway (BG), Brooke Laskowsky (CBNA), Alli Pratt (CBNA), Julia Cormier(CBNA), Heidi Ntengeri (BG), with Yoshiko Lynch and Christine Hu of Phillips Exeter.  Overall the girls race saw 11 break the 20:00 barrier on this challenging rolling hills course in the woods!

The boys’ varsity competition saw Coe-Brown repeat as champions by placing their top 5 before most teams’ 3rd runner.  Coe-Brown employed a pack mentality to take the win 50-79 over Oyster River.  With a pack time of 48 seconds, CBNA placed 6 in the top 20 and 7 in the top 25.  Senior Jared Nelson (4th) led the Bears.  This race saw 9 break the 17:00 barrier.

Patrick O’Brien (Oyster River) and Nick Brown (Kennett) took this one out through the mile in 5:10, while a pack consisting of the Coe-Brown’s Nelson, Evan Tanguay, Davio DeLuca, Zach Richards with Hunter Miller (Kingswood), Peter Caron (Windham), Neville Caulfield (Oyster River) and Jackson Brannen (Goffstown) gave chase.  O’Brien gradually pulled away from Brown over the middle mile of the course and cruised to victory breaking his own course record in 16:22.  It was an ever patient Miller who stalked a fading Brown over the latter half of the course to take 2nd with a time of 16:33.  Brown came back from 4th to overtake a much improved Nelson (CBNA) to take third in 16:41.

High School Photos!!  Thanks Dave

Middle School Photos!!  Thanks Dave!