Coach Matt Smith’s Londonderry High boys’ cross-country contingent qualified for the state Meet of Champions (MOC) this coming weekend but coach Ed Burgess’ Lady Lancer harriers just missed out on doing so by virtue of their performances at the Division I championship meets in Manchester’s Derryfield Park Saturday, Oct. 25.
The top eight teams and 30 individuals qualified for the MOC, which will be held at Nashua High School South this Saturday. Smith’s boys bagged the eighth and final team spot for that event, while Burgess’ bunch narrowly missed out on advancing by placing 10th as a crew, thus ending its 2014 campaign.
BOYS
To nobody’s surprise, the Pinkerton Academy males repeated as Division I champs by tallying a team score of 56 to comfortably outdistance the other 17 teams. The Timberlane Owls from Plaistow were a distant second with a group score of 100.
The eighth place Lancers ended up having three young men cross the line among the top 50 finishers in the 124-finisher race. That trio was paced by Jared Kane in 26th (17 minutes, 4 seconds), with Cam Dickson right behind him in the 27th spot (17:05) and Josh Wasserman 43rd (17:40).
Rounding out the Londonderry crew’s group of seven racers were Bailey Hamilton in 53rd place (17:57), Spenser Kutney in 74th (18:39), Nick Leach in the 77th slot (18:44), and Noah Schrank in position number 91 (18:58).
GIRLS
The battle for the title in the girls’ Division I race was nothing short of epic, with Bishop Guertin of Nashua and Concord having to go to their tie-breaking sixth runners to bust a 73-73 deadlock. BG won the tie-breaker, with Concord’s Crimson Tide second and Winnacunnet of Hampton a close third (score of 75).
The Lady Lancers finished just two slots out of the top eight and were paced by veteran stalwart Madison McKivergan in 31st place individually (20:55). Kalin Gregoire ended up in the 36th spot (21:07), Alexandra Seeley was 37th (21:08), Courtney Guay took 64th (22:06), Emily Holland finished in the 67th spot (22:13), Bella Ziolek finished up 82nd (22:48), and Kaitlyn Marchant was 93rd (23:20) in the 121-finisher field.