Junior Cross Country Places First Out of 17 in Larz Anderson Invitational

The intrepid runners of Classes V and VI took to the hills of Larz Anderson Park on October 19, in the hopes of defending their team title at the Larz Anderson Invitational. Without any ninth graders in the mix, the Junior Cross Country team’s younger team members seized the day, placing first out of 17 teams and earning the title of Larz Anderson Invitational team champions for the second year in a row. (Find individual results here.)

After bolting out of the gates at the start, the team settled into their paces. Ethan Budreau led the team through the halfway mark, with Bruce Ghostlaw close behind. Ben Romano, Julian Vidal, and Everett Bluman followed shortly thereafter in a tight group, demonstrating perfect “pack running” strategy. No other team had such a dense pack of runners at the mile—an intimidating show of dominance by RLXC. Everett epitomized a perfectly-paced race. After coming through the mile around 20th place, he made a big push on the second lap to move up, ultimately finishing in eleventh place, RL’s first runner across the line!

In the second half of the race, many other RL runners—including Nayan Patel, Kolby Sahin, and Jasper Hyatt—also showed the value of patient early running. Putting their “pedal to the metal” on lap #2, they passed a number of runners in the second mile. John Cirasuolo and Alex Archerman both showed the advantage that RL’s own Malley Hill gives RLXC athletes wherever they run; on lap #2, both John and Alex pushed over the top of the major hill to catch and pass runners on other teams. As the finish line drew near, Guled Rashid and Charley Malley unleashed fierce finishing kicks.

At an Invitational meet, points can add up quickly. Runners are scored based on their finishing places (11th place = 11 points), and so any score below 100 points is a score to be proud of. RL scored 70 points in the race. An additional measure of a team’s quality is its “spread”—the amount of time between a team’s #1 and #5 finisher. RL did not have any runners in the top 10, but the team had an astounding spread of 33 seconds, between 11th and 18th places. That teamwork is what helped RL seal its victory.

Recap by Junior Cross Country Head Coach, Erin Dromgoole.