Frontier’s Evan Hedlund, Sylvie DiBartolomeo pace local contingent at Western Massachusetts Cross Country Championships (PHOTOS)
Published: 10-27-2024 1:49 PM |
WESTFIELD – Impressive performances from the Frontier cross country teams highlighted a beautiful Sunday at Stanley Park for the Western Mass. Cross Country Championships.
The Redhawks finished third as a team in a tight boys race, while the girls team was fifth in the Class B event that kicks off championship season with more big races on the horizon.
“There’s nothing like cross country,” said Frontier senior Sylvie DiBartolomeo, who finished third overall on the girls’ side. “It’s such a small but tight community and everyone pushes each other to be better. It’s so rewarding, especially on days like today.”
DiBartolomeo ran well in the girls race that kicked off Sunday’s festivities. She stayed third behind eventual winner Amelia Desilets of Monument Mountain (19 minutes, 0.73 seconds) and runner-up Kathleen Barry of Hampshire Regional (19:26) into the wooded portion of the course, and stayed comfortably there en route to a third place finish in 19:45.54. It was a personal best on the 5K course for DiBartolomeo, who also broke the 20-minute barrier for the first time ever.
“I was so ecstatic,” she said. “I love this course. It’s a good balance of spectators being able to see you and cheer you on but then there’s the section in the woods where you can kind of be alone in your thoughts.”
DiBartolomeo had a familiar face in Barry running just ahead of her, as the two have competed in multiple meets this season and in years past.
“I knew we were similarly paced so that’s part of the sport that’s so great, just constantly pushing yourself to try and stay with runners like that,” she said.
Led by DiBartolomeo, Frontier finished fifth with 132 points. Lenox won the Class B title with 68 points, just ahead of second place Hampshire (72) and third place Mount Greylock (72) – the Raiders winning the tiebreaker based on their sixth finisher. Monument Mountain was fourth (97).
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All seven of Frontier’s runners finished inside the top 50 overall. Liv Christensen was 24th (21:30), while Perla Ordaz (34th, 22:13), Phoebe Radner (35th, 22:16) and Sasha Malo (40th, 22:54) also figured into the team’s scoring. Maia Christensen (41st, 23:06) and Madelyn Antes (47th, 23:23) also ran well for the Redhawks.
Mohawk Trail’s Virginia Krezmien put together an impressive run to pace her squad, as the sophomore was fourth overall in the Class B race with a time of 19:55.
Krezmien helped the Warriors take seventh place as a team (181 points), and she was joined in the top 10 individually by junior Anya Read (10th, 20:20). Natalie Lanoue (22nd, 21:28), Georgia Gauthier (72nd, 24:46) and Katie Osterman (78th, 24:53) were the other scorers for Mohawk Trail. Ella Thompson was close behind in 87th (25:28).
Pioneer was the only other area score to figure into the team standings on the girls side, as the Panthers were 19th led by Amelia Fowler-Shaw’s 49th place performance (23:31).
Greenfield’s Alice Fortin and Rose Fortin both cracked the top 100. Alice Fortin was 84th (25:22) and Rose Fortin crossed in 97th (26:11).
Buoyed by top four showings from stars Evan Hedlund and Luke Howard, the Frontier boys team snagged a third place finish with 80 points. Hampshire Regional won the Class B title for the first time in school history with 75 points, narrowly holding off second place Mount Greylock (79).
“We came in knowing it was anyone’s race to win, depending on who could pull it together,” Hampshire coach Sue Tracy said. “We were hopeful we could pull out a win, but knew we could fall as far down as fourth because of the close matchup.”
Monument Mountain’s Everett Pacheco dominated the field to win the individual Class B title with a blistering time of 15:29.
Hedlund was next across in second place, posting a time of 16:00.88 to finish as the individual runner-up for the second year in a row. The sophomore’s time was nearly 30 seconds better than his 2023 performance.
Howard was fourth overall in 16:13, over 40 seconds faster than a year ago when he took sixth. Also factoring into the scoring for the Redhawks on Sunday were Oliver Brown (21st, 17:23), Charles Dennis (26th, 17:34) and Hengxi Yu (27th, 17:36). Adam Paul was 43rd and Caleb Libbey nabbed 75th for Frontier.
Behind junior Peter Healy’s 12th place showing, Mohawk Trail finished eighth as a team with 234 points. Healy crossed in 17:04 to lead the Warriors, with teammate Rex Kuoppala next in 31st (17:46). Other Mohawk Trail scorers were Aymeric Loucka (55th, 18:32), Carson Richardson (57th, 18:36) and Leo Boltz (81st, 19:45).
Greenfield finished 12th with 343 points, led by Dylan Breiwick (51st, 18:24), Alex Scotera (60th, 18:53) and Mason Youmell (63rd, 18:58). Javion Williams was 72nd (19:22) and Derek Scotera rounded out the scoring runners in 105th (21:11).
Pioneer took 15th as a team behind Ryan Spofford’s 42nd place performance (18:00). Eric Ballou (77th, 19:33), Lex Singh (107th, 21:17), Camden Guertin (109th, 21:22) and Lorenzo Bordas (120th, 22:09) were the team’s other scoring runners.
Aiden Drake was Mahar’s top runner on the day (127th place).
Teams will now turn their attention to the MIAA Divisional races on Nov. 9. The Division 3 event is slated for the Wrentham Development Center, with qualifiers advancing to the state meet on Nov. 16 at Fort Devens.