The 41st 2014 New Hampshire Middle School Cross Country Championships will be held at Londonderry High School this Saturday starting at 11:30. There will be ten races throughout the day concluding with the Girls and Boys Large and Small School Championships.
Last year’s Boys‘ Large School winner Keene will face a tough battle from Londonderry for the team title. They faced each other earlier in the year with Londonderry winning a close one at the Milford SAU40 Cross Country Race. Elm St., CMS and Hampton Academy will be in the battle for third.
Top runners in the Boys Large School Race will be Seacoast League Champion Will Coogan of CMS, Dovers Cameron Lent, Wyatt Ferrando of Keene, Zena Primmer of Amherst, Robert Sawdey of Merrimack, and a pack of Londonderry runners led by Kyle Hoglund, Christian Ganim, Patrick Murphy, Ryan Young and Thomas Fougere. Elm St. Alex Chen and Woodbury Sean Holden will compete to make this an exciting race.
After destroying the competition at the Middle School Manchester Invitational, McGlaughlin girls look poised to defend as Girls’ Large School Champions. Seacoast League Champions CMS and Tri County Division 2 Champions Amherst will give them a challenge. Merrimack and Londonderry should round out the top 5 teams.
Individually CMS Violet Sullivan and Amherst’s Taylor Clark should be the front runners along with last year’s champion Lauren Robinson of Fairgrounds. Others to keep an eye on are Amherst’s Ariell Zlotnick, and a pair of Merrimack runners Lauren Brennan and Sophie Kim. McGlaughlin’s Jordan Vaillancourt and Morgan Nault should make this a very close finish.
Defending Boys’ Small School Champion Deerfield’s depth will be tested Saturday. After winning both the Manchester Invitational and the Thetford Woods Vt. Invitational, it will face a real challenge from the much improved Tri County Division 2 Champion Hollis-Brookline squad. The battle for third should be between Oyster River, Nashua Catholic, Boynton and ASD.
After winning the Thetford Woods, Manchester and Black Bear Invitational, individually Deerfield’s Forest MacKenzie is the favorite. Cawley’s Joe Gagnon, Oyster River’s Henry Keegan, Deerfield’s David Cook and Henniker’s Brandon Langdon and a pair of Hollis-Brookline runners Kenny Corsetti and Evan Simonds should make it interesting.
The Girls Small School Champion is the question of the day. Who will step up and lead their team to victory. The battle now seems to be between several teams that include Hollis-Brookline, Deerfield, Litchfield, Nashua Catholic, Hampstead, Boynton, and Chester Academy.
Individually Hollis-Brookline’s Kay Partridge winner of the Manchester Invitational, teammate Lily Jackson, Northwood’s Addison Cox runner-up of the Black Bear Invitational, Auburn’s Ciara April, Tri County Division 3 Champion Boynton’s Madison Labrie, and Tri County Division 4 Champion Litchfield’s Gillian Gallagher, and Hopkinton’s Sydney Stockwell should have all the ingredients to make this a great race.
