PICS!
MORE PICS!
By Mike Smith
On a day that going into the Divisional championships looked like a deja vu of 2018, thankfully Saturday morning broke a little different, with some light intermittent rain through the day. While no one went home dry, things could have beet a lot worse.
Division 3 Girls
Lancer Timing’s Results
Starting off the day was the D3 girls race, with Hopkinton the overwhelming favorite. And the Lady Hawks came to play. From the gun the Hopkinton girls established their top five in the front pack that was chasing Portsmouth Christian’s Brianna Malone. Malone went straight to the front, put the pedal to the medal and never looked back. Leading from gun to tape, winning in 19 minutes, 22 seconds, the individual title was never in question.
Behind her Bishop Brady’s Katie Palmeteer and Hopkinton’s Hannah Bennett went at it, trading blows through the entire course, with Palmeteer winning the war of attrition, by ten seconds, 19:50 to 20:00.
Behind these three is where the true battle lay. Monadnock, buoyed by an injection of eighth graders would be up in the mix with 
the Hopkinton pack, something unseen this season. A group of three in Summer Bently, Sadie Gibson and Alyssa Hall would make inroads on the Hopkinton top five.
But Hopkinton’s strength in numbers would over power Monadnock’s youth movement, putting four in the top ten, five in the top fifteen, to easily win this one with a low 40 points, to Monadnocks 101. Bently would finish fourth, followed by Hopkinton’s Cailey Stockwell. Gibson was next in 6th, with Anna O’Reilly 7th, Cat Stow of Gilford in eighth, Hall in ninth and Shaylee Murdough of Hopkinton to round out the top ten.
Conant, running well this season and led by Kylie Aho, would finish in third, clear of the battle for fourth with 127 points. The next four teams would be separated by 12 points, with Campbell (157) and Newmarket (162) beating out Gilford (166) and Mascenic (169) for a shot at Meet of Champions next Saturday.
Division 3 Boys
Lancer Timing’s Results
In another deja vu moment, Gilford’s Patrick Gandini to a page from Malone’s playbook, going right to the front in this one, totally unchallenged throughout the race. The Great Gandini would best the field by almost a WHOLE MINUTE!, running 16 minutes, 34 seconds, wholly uncontested. Behind him the race became interesting, as Gandini’s push for the front definitely
strung out the field, with Portsmouth Christian’s Jonas Teeter and Hopkinton’s Ben Daniels electing to be drawn into the slipstream created by Gandini. But as the race progressed and Gandini slipped out of sight, the field sort of collapsed back on itself after the mile and the team battle began to take full shape.
As the runners started to come back down into the main field, Teeter held a gap over Mascenic’s Drew Traffie, who was running an inspired second half, after going through the mile in 10th place. Traffie would inch closer all the way from the tennis courts and even open a small gap prior to the hairpin turn before the finish, but Teeter would snipe Traffie on the finishing straight, 17:29 to 17:30.
Behind them, members of the top teams would battle for every place in the closing meters. Daniels would lead Monadnock’s Jace Joslyn in, followed by Newfound’s Connor Downes over Joslyn’s teammate Mitchell Hill (got it right that time boys!) Rounding out the top ten would be Berlin’s Brayden Landry, Trinity’s Aidan Palmeter and Hopkinton’s Matt Clarner.
Looking just at the top ten results one might think either Hopkinton or Monadnock was in the driver’s seat, but the next 
two in were Mascenic’s Connor Traffie and Jethro Somero, tilting the scale in Mascneic’s favor. With their #4 Ryan O’Shea battling a chest cold, #5 man Dom Cicchetti would step up big, securing 32 place, with Newfound’s Jeffrey Huckins the only other fourth runner ahead of him. The sick O’Shea would battle to a 36th place finish to close the door for Mascenic, winning with 94 points, their highest point total in all of their wins AND 34 points MORE than their losing score last year of 57. Strange season.
Newfound would put up a spirited fight, stepping out from the weeds to take second place with 115 points. Monadnock would finish third with 135 points, followed by Fall Mountain with 146 points and Conant with 153 points.
