PICS – Soon
INTERVIEWS!
On a day which sees a myriad of weather conditions, 2023 NHIAA Divisional State Championships greeted runners with a bright sunny day and warm temperatures. By the time the third session and D2’s turn rolled around, a breeze had picked up with some cloud cover, providing some relief but not much. To an athlete, it seemed the heat was felt the most during the final circuit on the lower fields. Regardless, the competitive drama was high and the racing was tight!
Girls
Lancer Timing’s Results
From the sound of the starter’s pistol, pre-race favorites Hanover, Oyster River and Hanover’s Leah Perreard took control of the race. As expected, Perreard wasted no time establishing control at the front achieving a comfortable lead by the mile mark. Unexpected was Hanover’s assertiveness during the first mile. While we knew this would be a tight team race between the top 2 teams in the entire Granite State, Lila Muirhead and Megan Faris were flanking Oyster River’s Mackenzie Cook by the mile mark. This while Hanover’s 4 and 5, Lily Terry and Millie Larrick were not too far behind. Oyster River displayed patience of veterans as Haley Kanvanagh, Haley Bezanson (freshman), Neely Roy (1st XC athlete, sophomore) and Madalyn Cook (freshman) hung back. Yes this would turn into a dual meet of sorts as only Souhegan’s Samantha Swanbon and Plymouth’s Elli Englund were the other athlete in the top 10 at this time.
So entering the second mile Hanover was winning the team and individual races, but this is where Oyster River asserted themselves taking the lead, all be it a slim one. It was clear as the race entered its final stages, both teams brought their best on a challenging day and Hanover was not going away. To her credit, Perreard only extended her lead as she cruised to the D2 title with a time of 18:48. A great time considering the warm temps. Mackenzie Cook, as expected separated from the chase pack to take 2nd, also comfortably in 19:05. To continue the dual meet theme, Muirhead (Hanover) would take 3rd, a handful of seconds in front of “don’t-call-it-a-comeback” Kavanagh (OR), who, in turn, was 5 seconds up on Faris (H). So Hanover with 3 in front of Oyster River’s 3rd, but this was also not unexpected as pre-race thoughts had this coming down to the back end of each team’s scoring 5.
As they have done all season, OR’s Bezanson and Roy would finish essentially together in 6th and 7th while their fifth scorer Madalyn Cook ran a superb, determined second half to place a solid 10th in 20:45 to seal the title for Oyster River. To their credit, Hanover’s Terry and Larrick would finish 11th and 13th respectively to keep this to a 4 point final score of 29-33. Yes very much like a dual meet!
Rounding out the top 10 was Swanbon in 8th (20:25) and Englund in 9th (20:31). These 2 led their teams to another, ever-so-tight team battle for 3rd as Plymouth Regional edged Souhegan by 1 point 138-139. With 4 teams punching their tickets to MOCs, there were only 2 slots left. Led by their own freshman in Olivia Hanna and her 12th place finish, Lebanon placed 5th with 178 points, while Bow and their strong pack running, led by Julia Hou, would placed 6th with 212 points.
Boys
Lancer Timing Results
Much like the girls race, it became clear Hanover came to play. As the field approached the 1st mile mark, a front pack had formed with Hanover’s Lucian Gleiser and Coe-Brown’s Jamie Lano at the front as expected. Also in the front pack was Sanborn’s Jake Pitre, Souhegan’s Taloosh Anderson, Con-Val’s Will Simard and Hanover’s 2-4 runners, Ryan Faris, Andrew Valentino, and Ben Groves. Coe-Brown’s Luc Kerouac and Sanjith Nomula as well as Milford’s Logan Korthals, John Stark’s Eli Lemire and Souhegan’s Owen Stine were in the chase pack.
All the real action occurred between the hills towards the 2 mile mark as Lano and Gleiser simply hammered this section. Lano would win this mid-race opening up quite the lead by the 2 mile mark. Gleiser, admittedly may have put too much into this section trying to break the field. Meanwhile, Coe-Brown tried to assert themselves on this loop but coming off the hills, it was clear Hanover was having a great day.
Lano entered the lower field section with a nice lead and was seemingly running comfortable, but Souhegan’s Anderson had taken over the 2nd spot and was certainly giving chase. By the final turn at the infamous tree, Anderson had cut Lano’s lead down to a few seconds and at this point, it was clear Lano was feeling the effects of his monstrous 2nd mile effort. Sensing Anderson, Lano had 1 more move to make as he laid down a title earning, grinder of a kick to win in 16:24 to Anderson’s 16:27. Great, dramatic race and effort on both parts!
For his efforts, Pitre quietly nabbed 3rd in 16:35 while Hanover Faris came in as their top harrier on the day placing 4th in 16:37. As evidence of his mid-race bid for the win, Gleiser faded to 5th in 16:45. Nomula of CBNA ran another great second half to take 6th in 16:51, but Hanover would place a strong claim on the team title as Valentino and Groves took 7th and 8th right in front of Kerouac of CBNA. Placing 4 in the top 10, Hanover had a stranglehold on the title. Their 5th man, Will Parker placed 16th to complete their scoring winning 40 points to Coe-Brown‘s 62 points. Of note, this was Hanover’s first team title since 2009. In the process, they snapped CBNA’s streak of D2 titles at an incredible 5. Perhaps more noteworthy, CBNA had won 9 of the last 10 D2 meets as Oyster River broke up this dominance with a 2017 victory.
Always solid Souhegan, led by Anderson’s superb effort, would place 3rd with 97 points. Oyster River front man Ian Hricz placed 10th in 17:07 to lead to the ever improving Bobcat squad to a 4th place finish with 114 points. Bow, led by Alden Betterley, continued the pack theme set by their girls team, to nab an MOC qualifying 5th with 192 points, while Milford, buoyed by Korthals placing 11th, nabbed the final MOC spot placing 6th.
