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 1 and Division 2 Middle School State Championships held at Derryfield Park. This is the first time these particular championships have been held at Derryfield as the previous ones have been held at Londonderry for many years. With its founder Larry Martin retiring from being the meet director, the reins were handed to Justin Platt, who moved the meet to historic Derryfield. 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 Justin Platt, Yankee Timing, and City of Manchester for making this a first class event for the kids and spectators.
Division 1
The largest division saw the girls team race being won comfortably by former host school, Londonderry which packed their 5 scorers in the top 20. Led by Anna Laufersweiler’s runner up finish and their 2 through 5 scorers being separated by less than 30 seconds, Londonderry amassed only 65 points to win rather easily. Alyssa Cawthorn placed 11th, Bridget Quinlan placed 14th, Aylin Hand placed 19th and Stella Dutton 21st to complete their scoring.
Merrimack’s Zoe Coler won the race by a comfortable margin crossing in 14:00, a 28 second cushion on 2nd place. Dover’s Evalee James was 3rd in 14:40 with Woodbury’s Shae O’Loughlin taking 4th and Hudson’s Makenna Simpson placing 5th in 14:47 and 14:51 respectively. Ashleigh MacEacher would win a pack battle to place 6th in 15:29. Keene’s Gemma Vaillancourt took 7th a few seconds back and a couple seconds before Dover’s Aria Kelley and CMS’s Josie Scoll. Rounding out the top 10 was Mariam Sturtz of Keene with a time of 15:35.
With 2 in the top 10 and 3 in the top 15, Keene secured the runner up trophy with 102 points to Hudson’s 111. Windham was 4th with 119 points.
In a much closer competition on the boys side, Londonderry completed the sweep winning the D1 state
title by a mere 6 points over Ross A. Lurgio 51-57. Rundlett wasn’t too far behind with 72 points led by Spencer Clemans 21 second individual title. While Lurgio did have 3 finishers in the top 10 to Londonderry’s 2, it was Londonderry’s back end which proved to be the difference as all 5 of their scorers placed in the top 16 ahead of Lurgio’s 4th man. Patrick Ramsey led Londonderry by placing 2nd overall in 13:03 while Samuel Erdtmann took 5th in 13:21. It was a 3-4-5 pack time of only 4 seconds which decided it as Alec Lemeris, John Vaccaro and Charlie McCarthy placed 14th, 16th, and 17th with times ranging from 13:53 to 13:57.
Lurgio was led by Luke Parker’s, George Grey’s and Alex Ethridge’s 4th, 7th, and 9th place finishes respectively. Rundlett also had Conor Fennessy place in the top 10 as he crossed in 6th with a time of 13:24. Rounding our the top 10 were Dover’s Zachary Lefebvre in 3rd, Keene’s Sawyer Kress in 8th and CMS’s Xavier Garcia De P in 10th.
Division 2
Division 2 in middle school looks close to a mirror image of Division 2 at the high school level. Ranked #1 in NH on the high school level, Oyster River Middle girls fended off a similarly loaded Hampton Academy team to win the D2 State Title 47-56. This shows, Oyster River High School will be at least contenders for the foreseeable future. While Milford’s Jaylyn Paul pulled away to win the individual state title, breaking the proverbial tape in 13:55, Oyster River and Hampton got after it in the team race.
Olivia Kavanagh (ORMS) eventually placed 2nd in 14:12 but then Hampton Academy took the next two placed as Hanna Curtin and Pammy Valhouli placed 3rd and 4th in 14:20 and 14:24. After Laconia’s Mariah Ash crossed for 5th, Oyster River countered with the younger Kavanagh sister, Kayla in 6th. Oyster River struck again with the 10th place finish of Rina Han giving ORMS 3 in the top 10 to Hampton’s 2. However, Hampton would cross next with 16th place Emily Arlington, but she had to outlean ORMS’s 4th Beatrix Howey-Clar to do it. Arlington’s teammate Rowan Condon then came 6 seconds later to keep it close; however, ORMS would clinch the state title when Rosalita Kritzer their 5th scorer crossed in 22nd in 16:02.
Rounding out the top 10, Hanover’s top scorer, Lena Scavone placed 7th, West Running Brook’s Meghan Mullaney placed 8th and Merrimack Valley’s Isabel Geddes placed 9th. Teamwise perennial powerhouse Amherst would be 3rd with 83 points.
The boy’s side saw Hanover, which is ranked #2 in the state in high school, win by almost 30 points. They
placed 3 in the top 10 and all 5 scorers in the top 20. Led by Rhys Jones and Alexander Collins taking 2nd and 3rd places both in 13:00, Hanover also had 3 in the top 10 as Coop Jones took 9th place. That is only 14 points through their top 3. With that, Miles Molina and Dylan Faris sealed the deal placing 16th and 19th. Amherst would be 2nd with 78 points as their top 3 did the damage with Jacob Spencer placing 8th, JD Conforiti 10th, and Ripken Lee 11th. Oyster River led by Jace Dinnan and Everett Tardiff placing 4th and 6th overall placed 3rd with 89 points.
Individually, Bow’s Sam Kohl pulled away to become the 2023 D2 MS State Champion breaking the tape in 12:41. Aside from the aforementioned top 10 finishers, Portsmouth’s Gavin Leader ran to a strong 5th place finish in 13:07 while Kohl’s brother George crossed in 7th with a time of 13:16.
Congrats to all!!!
