Veteran coach Matt Smith’s talented Londonderry High boys’ cross-country contingent capped off its strong 2017 season with a fine, 17th place finish out of some 30 teams at the New England Cross-Country Championships at the Troy Howard Middle School in Belfast, Me. last Saturday, Nov. 11.
Powered and inspired by impressive freshman talent, Smith’s Lancers ended up looking upward at a group of 16 teams which was headed by the 2017 New England champs from Xavier, Ct. But there were also 13 squads below the locals.
Skilled Londonderry ninth-grader Will Heenan was first for his Lancers and the fourth New Hampshire harrier across the finish line, placing 33rd overall with his time of 16 minutes and 20.72 seconds. A total of 253 male runners from across the New England region completed that race.
Heenan was followed to the finish by his fellow LHS freshman Ryan Young, who wound up 111th overall in 16:58.62. And behind Young were Londonderry senior Jake Donnelly in 117th (17:01.02), his fellow 12th grader Kerry Daley in the 181st position (17:36.23), third Londonderry freshman Matt Griffin in 186th place (17:39.23), senior Jeff Cieslikowski in the 192nd spot (17:42.05), and his junior teammate Kyle Hoglund exactly one second behind him (17:43.05) in 193rd.
Freshmen Heenan, Young, and Griffin all stepped into the LHS cross-country fold impressively this season after helping to continue a multi-year streak of state championships of three straight rolling at the Londonderry Middle School last autumn. And the three talented and determined young men lit a spark which helped propel the established Lancer veterans to greater heights this fall.
After a truly superb effort at the Division I championships in Manchester’s Derryfield Park several weeks ago – through which the Lancers finished a tiny two points out of the runner-up spot behind Pinkerton – the Londonderry bunch bagged a fifth place team finish at the state Meet of Champions at Mine Falls Park in Nashua to qualify for the New Englands.
While the losses of current LHS seniors like Donnelly and Daley and Cieslikowski to graduation will no doubt sting coach Smith’s Lancers, there will be more impressive talent coming up from a 2017 Londonderry Middle School bunch which bagged a fourth consecutive state championship this fall. So saying the Londonderry High boys’ cross-country future looks bright might just end up being a huge understatement.