Middle School Championship Meet Hub
Under picture perfect skies on an unseasonably warm day, middle schoolers once again descended onto the Coe-Brown campus and cross country course to decide the state championships. Contrast this with last year’s deluge of consistent rain, the 50th Middle School State Championships for schools from Division 3 and Division 4 was held in near perfect conditions!
Division 4
While this year’s weather was the complete opposite of last year, the winning D4 girls team has not changed in the last several. For the fourth consecutive year Heronfield Academy claimed the D4 crown scoring 48 points. Led by repeat D4 champ Harper Peters (12:22), Heronfield placed their 5 scorers in the top 20 as Lakhi Baumgart was 5th, Mari Ciashini 9th, Alexa Pacelli 14th and Sophie Burgess 20th. It was a close team race for runner up as Southeast League rivals (friendly of course) Nottingham and Deerfield battled. While Deerfield claimed last week’s league championship, this week Nottingham edged them by just 5 points for 2nd. Nottingham placed their top 3 in the top 10 with Hilary Wennberg (4th), Marguerite Cardillo (7th) and Riley Trested (10th). Deerfield was led by Anwen Purinton and Hayden Dubois (18th).
Chesterfield’s Aubrie Deroches pushed Peters the entire way as she placed 2nd just 4 seconds back. Also making the top 10 was North Hampton’s Vera McCown (3rd) and Portsmouth Christian’s Elizabeth Stewart (6th).
For the last 2 years, Rye Junior High School has been atop the D4 mountain top as state champions, so this year they were the favorites with Southeast League Champs Deerfield as the contender. From the gun Northwood’s Broden Cox took it out hard, but by the mile Deerfield’s Sam Youngs had bridged the gap. Exiting the single track, Youngs took the lead but Cox covered and built to a 3 second lead in the end winning in 10:49 to Youngs’ 10:52. Don’t feel bad for Youngs though as he led Deerfield to the state team title in a bit of an upset over Rye Junior. Ben Pearl (3rd) and Robert Marttilla (6th) led Rye to the runner up position on the podium, but Deerfield countered scoring the remainder of their top 5 in the top 20 with 11th place Jacob Poe, 14th place Ethan Dallaire, 18th place Wyatt Gagne and 19th place Dunham Graham. Also claiming a top 10 finish was Profile’s Thatcher Brown (4th), Chesterfield’s Lincoln Pinegar (5th), Heronfield’s Henry Tanguay (7th), Nottingham’s Landis Beckmam (8th), Saint Patrick’s Ian Sharkey (9th) and Northwood’s Jameson Neal (10th).
Division 3
Hopkinton Middle School girls came in as the favorites and certainly lived up to expectations. Led by Gwyneth Buelte and Hannah Clarner, HMS scored won by 20 points over upstart Barrington. Buelte ran a smart race battling with Winnisquam’s Eloise Abbott for the win. In the end Abbott pulled away over the last 800 to win in 13:03 to Buelte’s 13:11. Also scoring for Hopkinton was Clare Collins (17th), Maggie Gross (26th) and Avery Duval (33rd). Barrington was led by 6th grader Graciela Ferguson who placed an impressive 4th overall and Lily Travis who battled her way to a well earned 10th place finish. Future is bright for Barrington as another 6th grader, Matilda O’Connor took 13th for the runner-ups. Also garnering top 10 honors were Three Rivers’ Emmie Holt (3rd), Winnisquam’s Addison Fowler (5th), Inter-Lakes teammates Elsa Bartlett (7th) and Sydney Conkling (8th) as well as Indian River’s Paige Reney (9th).
On the boys side, last year Barrington Middle School claimed the runner-up honors a mere 3 points behind champion Newmarket. This year they put it altogether winning the team title with an impressive 43 points to Monadnock’s 59. They were led by Mateo Ferguson who completed an undefeated season pulling away from Hopkinton’s Liam Tripod (2nd, 11:12) and Newmarket’s Kinley McKenna (3rd, 11:14) to win in 11:05. Tripod had pushed the race over the first mile or so with Ferguson and Mckenna keeping close until the final 600 leaving the single track. While Ferguson’s win was impressive, Barrington’s team win perhaps was just as impressive as their 2nd through 5th scorers placed 10th-13th and were separated by just 6 seconds 12:38 to 12:44. Their 5 man scoring average was an historically impressive 12:22. Runner-up Monadnock was led by 3 top 10 finishers Jackson Ellis (4th), Jason Lewis (7th) and Dominic DiLoreto (9th). Also earning top 10 honors were Conant’s Benjamin Dumont (5th), Indian Rivers Lucas Loynds (6th), and Three Rivers’ Everett Sheehan (8th).
