In spite of Mother Nature making it a purely soggy and muddy affair, Granite State Middle Schoolers competed with heart and grit at this past Saturday’s Division 3 and Division 4 Middle School State Championships held at Coe-Brown. With more than 25 schools represented, spectators were also not deterred by the challenging weather conditions and were full of almost as much spirit as the kids! Thanks to CBNA and the timing professionals at Lancer Timing for making this a first class event for the kids and spectators.
Division 4
Division 4 kicked things off in the morning during the best conditions on the day with minimal rain, but still enough to be a factor. Entering the meet, Heronfield Academy was the 2-time defending champions, gunning for the three-peat! Charging to the lead off the line was Isabella Quadros of St-Joseph-Salem with Henniker’s Nora Smith, North Hampton’s Vera McCown, Heronfield’s Harper Peters and Brady Preneta, as well as Moultonborough’s Haley Watts in tow. Smith would end up giving Quadros all she could handle as it was Smith coming onto the finish stretch with the lead. Quadros responded with a blistering kick for the win 12:16 to 12:17!! Incredible times for the conditions! McCown would be 3rd in 12:29 while Peters outlasted Chesterfield’s Aubrie Desroches for 4th 12:34-12:36. Watts would be 6th on the literal lean over Derryfield’s Anna Fazelet for 7th. Preneta would place 8th in 13:02 with South Hampton’s Violet Davis crossing in 9th.
By placing 4 in the top 11, Heronfield indeed captured the 3-peat. Along with Peters in 4th and Preneta in 8th, Evelyn Marshall and Annabel Jordan placed 10th and 11th together at 13:19 and 13:20. With 5th scorer Sophie Burgess 20 seconds later, Heronfield won with a big cushion scoring 49 points. Rye Junior was 2nd led by Jenny Ryan’s 13th place finish while Chesterfield would outduel Plymouth to claim 3rd by only 7 points.
The boys side saw another team striving for a 3 peat with Rye Junior High School. Characterized by great pack running, Rye was the favorite coming in. From the start however, the individuals supplied the excitement as defending champ Fall Mountain’s Matthew Northcott, the defending champ, charged to the lead. But having a breakout season, Wentworth’s Patrick Youngs responded immediately and would have the lead by the 1k mark. Youngs’ younger brother Samuel would be dueling with Shaker Road’s Ben Larson at this point as well. Then the chase pack, which had already formed, was comprised of Rye’s Robert Marttila and Ben Pearl as well as St. Joseph-Salem’s Anthony Benoit and Northwood’s Broden Cox.
When the leaders reemerged entering the single track Patrick Youngs had the race well in hand and he would close it out to take home the state title in 10:49. Northcott would run strong and place 2nd in 11:12. Samuel Youngs would pull away for 3rd with Larson placing 4th. Plymouth’s Caleb Thielbar would cross in 5th in 12:09 and that’s when Rye Junior began to lay claim to another title. Marttila and Pearl would cross in thh and 8th with Cox on their heels in 9th. Rye’s Bobby Flynn would make it 3 in the top 10 as he placed 10th in 12:24.
With their top 3 in the top 10, Rye Junior won rather easily scoring a scant 47 points. Rye’s 4th and 5th, Apollo Londoff and Julian Brousseau both placed in the top 25 contributing to their low total score of 47 points. The close competition was between 2nd and 3rd place but Heronfield would claim the runner-up plaque score 105 points to Derryfield’s 109 points. Congrats to all!
Division 3
Because of the heavy rain forecasted in the afternoon, this meet was moved up to start an hour early. It worked for about 5 minutes (ha ha). So D3 saw the worst conditions both with the weather and resulting course conditions. You all know what this meant…awesome cross country conditions! Embracing the rain and mud, team wise, the girls race would prove to be the most competitive of the day. The eventual winning team would claim the title by just 13 points, but then the next 5 teams would be separated by a mere 9 points!
Individually it was Leah Unger of Iber Holmes Gove Middle ripping off the line to grab the early lead which by 1k was around 10 seconds. In pursuit, but showing loads of patience, was Conant Middle’s Olivia Richard and the chase pack comprised of Hopkinton’s Maisie Emerson, Hampstead’s Naomi Ebhaleme, and Three River’s Caitrin Bergeron. A secondary pack also formed with Inter-Lakes Junior’s Abigail Furlan, Winnisquam’s Addison Fowler, Hampstead’s Lola Hideriotis and others.
Richard would enter the single track section only a few seconds back and by the time she emerged onto the final stretch had taken the lead to claim the state title 12:07. Unger held on strong for 2nd in 12:15. Emerson would pull away from the chase pack to place 3rd in 12:57 with Ebhaleme placing 4th. Fowler would roll to 5th, with Furlan 6 seconds back for 6th. Bergeron would battle tough to place 7th and Sanborn’s Sierra Dutton would come on to place 8th in 14:11, 2 seconds up on Hideriotis and Litchfield’s Ashlynn Guay.
In the highest winning score on the day, Hampstead would take home the D3 title by certainly having the best 4 on the day and only having 5 on the entire team! Placing 2 in the top 10 along with Maya Millwood in 28th, Emily Dauer in 44th, cheered on their teammate Anna Andrez to finish and that she did giving Hampstead a total of 163 points FTW! As previously mentioned the next 4 were certainly bunched with South Meadow 2nd with 176 points, Three Rivers 3rd with 178 points, Auburn Village 4th with 179 points and Litchfield 5th with 184 points only 1 point better than 6th Newmarket!
The D3 boys had the pleasure of being the 8th race of the day, so they had the most “fun” conditions! Pre-race favorite, Ethan Fischer took off from the gun in the downpour and literally never looked back. Barrington’s James Travis gave chase and by doing this, fully separated from the chase pack. William Lecain of Three Rivers, Hopkinton’s Max Goupil, Auburn Village’s Siddharth Krishna and Indian River’s Ian Kiefer.
Coming into this race, the team favorite was a bit disputable, up in the air if you will. Usually when this is the case, the most exciting competition will result. Well, the top 2 teams being separated by 3 points exciting enough for you?? While Fischer was rolling to the inevitable state D3 title in 10:52, Barrington and Newmarket were trading places throughout the race. Barrington had the next best low stick with Travis placing 2nd in 11:39. Hopkinton Middle looked to make their presence felt placing 2 in the top 10 with Goupil 4th and Liam Tripod 6th. Kiefer split the 2 placing 5th. Newmarket entered the scoring with Kinley McKenna placing 7th. Krishna would wind up 8th. South Meadow’s Ari Pape came up to nab 9th.
Southeast League champs, Barrington, really put the pressure on the field as Forest Earl and Mateo Ferguson would place 10th and 11th respectively. However, Newmarket would stay in it with Benjamin Patrick right behind them in 12th. With their 3-4-5 placing 18th with Aiden Acosta, 27th with Pilot Lewis and 28th with Camden Dean, the Mules sealed the title with 82 points. To their credit Barrington was right behind with 85 points to gain a well earned runner up plaque. Hopkinton Middle would be third with 103 points.
Congrats to all!
