Meet Hub: Nashua North Invitational
Nashua North always represents an exciting early season look at the field with a lot of strong teams heading to Mines Falls to get some fast early season times on the flat course.
With 5 of the top 10 currently ranked teams slated to compete, along with on of the top teams from Vermont, the girls race will certainly be exciting. Last year, NH#4 Pinkerton was the runner up by a mere 3 points to Hanover. This year they are the top ranked team coming in fresh off their season opener at Souhegan Relays. They are now led by Sookie Folsom who is the top returner based on her finish last year. Look for her teammates Gabrielle Bedard, Althea LeBlanc, Parker Knowlton, and Kailisan Marzolf to provide the bulk of the team scoring.
The next highest ranked team in attendance will by Plymouth. Yep, that’s right! Plymouth enters the weekend as the 7th ranked team in the Granite State! Fresh off their big win this past weekend at the Paul Letarte Great Glen Invitational finishing ahead of D1’s Concord and Keene, Plymouth should be riding a wave of confidence. Led by Elli Englund, we will see how they adjust to a flat course as we know how hilly Great Glen can be! Supporting Englund should be Abigail Furlan, Ella Ronci, Claire Gervez and Leah Ines.
#8 Concord finished just 13 points behind Plymouth and will be looking to build on their opener. They were led by a couple of sophs Mahalie Burdette and Quinn Doherty. We will also see NH #9 Bishop Guertin presumably at full strength this weekend. We did see results from earlier in the week, but Saturday will be the true test. Their top returner is Anna Fondakowski, one of the best runners in the state, but also look to Lyla Masson and Anna Sinclair to lead them.
#10 Bedford is the final ranked team competing. Led by cross country newcomer Mikita Barry, look for Bedford to mix it up. Two other teams to keep your eye on are U-32 Vermont and Londonderry. U-32 is one of the best teams from the Green Mountain State and is led by Madison Beaudoin and Ginger Long. Londonderry showed great promise last week at Bobcat finishing a handful of points behind Bedford. Led by Sayde White and Anna Laufsweiler, we are excited to see what this week might bring for the Lancers.
Individually, the aforementioned Mikita Barry of Bedford has to be the favorite. The indoor track middle distance star is in her first cross country season and has won her first two races in impressive fashion. She won Bobcat on one of the toughest courses in NH and then followed that up with a win at the Cofrin Classic on one of the faster courses. She won that in 18:15. Matter of fact she set the course record at Bobcat posting an 18:49. How about that? A newcomer to our sport and with her 1st two races, in the 18s. Excited to see what she can do at Mines Falls. The chase pack should include Pinkerton’s Folsom and Bedard, Plymouth’s Englund, BG’s Fondakowski, Merrimack’s Melanie Bedard, North’s Laura White, among others!
-Tim Cox
On the boys side, with six of the top ten teams in the state, it’s going to be a test for any team to win. Let’s dive into the data and see who looks ready to come out on top.
Especially looking at how the meet went last year, it’s hard to pick against Nashua South (NH#3) to repeat as the winners. They have three of the top seven returners including #2 overall Daniel Byrne who absolutely tore it up last year running a 15:41. Cameron Patronick and Andrew Byrne will look to back him up as sixth and seventh overall returners. With that kind of top three, it’s going to be tough for anyone to get the kind of scores necessary to bump them off. Icing on the cake for South? Their entire top 5 from this meet is back AND it’s their home course.
Salem (NH#2) may just have what it takes to beat South because they’ve already done it once this season. Salem was only behind Hanover (who won’t be in attendance this year) at the Souhegan Relays last weekend which is a meet that heavily rewards a team with solid depth. It’s a little difficult to take the information from Souhegan and use it to figure out a team’s success at a regular invite but it’s notable that South’s top five would have beaten Salem’s if their relay legs were scored out in duel meet style. Salem can expect a top five performance from Brodie Chisholm and they’ll hope that Brock James and Jackson Gannon can both be in the top ten. Also keep an eye out for Elliot Chisholm, who improved a ton last year as the season went on and might find his way up with Salem’s top group.
Tough to pick the next spot because these next two teams could be very close. Bishop Guertin (NH#4) hasn’t had any results out yet but they have the likely race winner on their team in Matt Giardina who easily outpaced the field last year by over 20 seconds. Carson Fischer will back him with a likely top five finish and Sam Prescott looks like a top 15 returner. BG’s weakness this season would be a bit of a gap to their fifth runner but they picked up the best incoming freshman this year, Ethan Fischer. That could be a game changer for the team and we may see them compete with our top two teams.
Don’t count out Pinkerton Academy (NH#5) though as they seem to have had a pickup of their own. Oscar D’Amelio, who had a stellar freshman track season, has joined their cross country team this year and quickly vaulted himself to their top spot last weekend at the Paul Letarte Invitational. Based off the times from last year’s Letarte race, he might find himself breaking 16 and give him a shot at a top 5 finish. Backing him up was Trainor Mailloux and Joe Gustavson who will both be looking for top 15 finishes. Pinkerton will need some additional help though if they’re hoping to keep it close with our top 3.
Our fifth team to watch is Londonderry (NH#6), who are fresh off of an exciting win at the challenging Bobcat Invitational. Carson Fitzgerald won his varsity invitational and should come into Nashua with a lot of confidence. Teammate Josh Twomey was not far behind him taking third place overall and will likely be right on his heels with both runners probably trying to crack the top ten. Freshman Patrick Ramsey looks primed to play a big role in the Lancers exceeding expectations this season with a top 10 finish at Bobcat. Keep an eye out for these guys to try and push their way into the state’s top 5 this weekend!
The individual side of this race is likely going to be the Matt Giardina show. The number one returner in the race by a not small margin, he tends to tear courses like this up. If there’s one thing that could maybe play a role, this meet is pretty early in the season and Giardina’s eyes may be looking a little further down the road to start really pushing meets. If he’s not in full race mode yet, look for Daniel Byrne to try and capitalize on that and try to get a big early season win. Another fun runner to look out for is Conval’s William Simard. Simard took a massive leap forward this past spring where he ultimately took sixth place at New Englands and kicked off this season with a state leading 15:27 at Sanborn. Could his early season fitness help him to an upset of Giardina? Only four of last year’s top ten returned so it’s going to be exciting to see who fills in the spots after our top three. Carson Fischer, Brodie Chisholm and Carson Fitzgerald should be exciting to watch battle for those next spots.
–Ian French
