MANCHESTER – Winning the New England title was going to be an uphill battle, literally and figuratively, for the Tide. Few teams win a state title and even fewer can realistically think about challenging for a New England title, but that’s what Concord boys’ cross country did.
The Tide fell short of its ultimate goal of winning a New England title, but Concord still showed that it belongs in New England’s running elite, finishing seventh at Saturday’s New England Interscholastic Cross Country Championship at Derryfield Park. Senior Forest MacKenzie finished seventh overall to lead the Tide, just 16 seconds off the champion.
Merrimack Valley’s Sophia Reynolds continued her incredible freshman campaign, following her Division II and Meet of Champions titles from the past two weeks with a runner-up New England finish.
Kearsarge’s Mya Dube, the D-III champion, also earned All-New England honors, by finishing 14th, while both the Coe-Brown boys’ and girls’ teams finished 11th against New England’s best.
Although the Concord boys settled for seventh, MacKenzie understood the season-long success was certainly worth celebrating.
“The big thing with today is that we wanted everybody to be proud of what they accomplished,” said MacKenzie, a senior. “We put in so much work behind the scenes and trained a lot over the summer. We trained for 364 days (since last New Englands) and, win or lose, you have to be proud of that.”
La Salle, R.I. won the team title with 49 points. Bishop Hendricken, the only team to beat Concord all season entering Saturday’s New England championship, finished second with 80 points. Bishop Hendricken beat La Salle by just five points at the Rhode Island state championship and was the main team on Concord’s radar entering Saturday’s race.
Xavier, Conn., finished third with 111 points. Hall (169), Staples (193) and Suffield (208), all from Connecticut, claimed places four through six.
All of the top three teams are private schools and are able to pull from more communities than most New Hampshire public high schools.
Concord finished with 216 points to finish as New Hampshire’s top team, ahead of Keene (eighth, 229) and Coe-Brown (11th, 323).
Hall’s Trey Cormier won the individual title, clocking a 15:56.6 on the muddy 5K course in windy conditions.
Cormier capitalized on a fall by a few runners in a muddy section a little over half a mile into the race. Multiple runners in the lead pack fell in a muddy section coming around a curve and up a hill, forcing many lead runners, MacKenzie included, to separate to the edges of the course and Cormier made a move to pull away.
“To be honest, the conditions were worse than I wanted them to be, but I’m not one to make excuses,” said MacKenzie, who recently committed to run for the University of New Hampshire next year. “I’m going to be proud of what I did today. It could’ve been a lot worse. I’m happy. It’s a solid way to end my high school career in New Hampshire.”
MacKenzie (16:12.6) earned All-New England honors to go along with his D-I and MOC titles, while fellow senior Eli Boesch-Dining missed the cut by seven seconds, finishing 33rd in 16:40. Eben Bragg (51st, 16:54), Ryan Devine (107th, 17:26), Brayden Kearns (116th, 17:30), David Cook (172nd, 18:08) and Aidan O’Hern (183rd, 18:14) rounded out Concord’s runners.
Merrimack Valley’s David Reynolds finished 38th in 16:46 while Wyatt Mackey (54th, 16:56), Luke Tkaczyk (56th, 16:58), Logan Mihelich (87th, 17:15), Carter Sylvester (120th, 17:33) and Dawson Dubois (152nd, 17:54) scored for Coe-Brown in its sixth straight appearance at New Englands.
With the region’s best flocking to Manchester, the high level of competition makes what Sophia Reynolds accomplished as a freshman all the more impressive.
The race became battle between Reynolds and the eventual winner, Kate Wiser of Pomeraug, Conn., the two winners from the Manchester Invitational on Sept. 22.
Reynolds, the Girls’ Small School race winner, and Wiser, the Girls’ Large School race winner pulled away from the rest of the pack at the start of the second mile and Wiser stretched her lead in the final mile to win in 18:04.1, while Reynolds finished in 18:42.
“It was my first New Englands so I just tried to have fun and it was great,” Reynolds said. “The start was really fast. There were more girls around than usual. Normally it’s me and two or three other girls out front but this was a big pack at the first mile.”
Dube was the sixth-fastest runner from New Hampshire, finishing in 19:19, and was one of eight Granite State harriers to finish in the top 25.
Champlain Valley, Vt. (78), La Salle (149) and Immaculate, Conn. (187) were the top three girls’ teams, while Pinkerton (274) and ConVal (283) were New Hampshire’s top teams, finishing eighth and ninth, respectively. Coe-Brown’s 304 points took 11th.
Ella Malone (41st, 20:04), Addison Cox (55th, 20:16), Abigail O’Connor (107th, 20:54), Amelia Edmonds (143rd, 21:15) and Miranda Compton (166th, 21:33) were the scoring runners for Coe-Brown, making its 11th straight New England appearance.
Belmont’s Alice Riley (79th, 20:32) also competed.
With the official high school cross country season in the books, area runners, will be competing in regional races in an attempt to reach the national stage.
The Concord boys will compete in the Nike Cross Northeast Regional on Nov. 24 in Wappingers Falls, N.Y., while Sophia Reynolds will be competing in the Adidas Foot Locker Cross Country Northeast regional on the same day in Bronx, N.Y.