all photos by Chris Mazzurco
10/29/11 – The NYA Boys Cross Country team capped a magical two-year run today by repeating as Class C State Champions. On a cool, cloudy day, the runners took on a muddy 3.1-mile Twin Brook course and the best Class C competition in the state and emerged a dominant championship team, beating runner-up Waynflete by a score of 74-108.
Although NYA came in as the heavy pre-race favorites, there was still drama to play out before they could take home the trophy. All the guys got out to a strong start and by the 2-mile mark, it looked as if they could simply cruise to the finish. But then several things happened nearly at once. Cam Regan ’12, in command at sixth place overall, hit the wall with about a half mile to go. Speculation was that he might have been feeling the onset of the flu, but whatever the reason, Cam went into the last loop in the woods looking as strong as ever and came out looking like a Halloween zombie stumbling through quicksand. It was only by sheer guts that he willed his body across the finish line as runner after runner passed him.
Meanwhile, Alex Coffin ’12 had decided to take matters into his own hands. Alex had started conservatively and by the 2-mile mark had worked his way up to the top 20. Then he just pushed the throttle to the floor, finishing the last 1.1 miles at a 5:33/mile pace – faster than most of the runners had started the race! With this surge, Alex moved up to take the 10th place medal in a time of 17:43. Evan Kendall ‘ 12 accompanied Alex most of the last mile and came in 11th (17:55). Rudy Guliani ’12 overcame a fall in the last 300 meters to bring his mud-spattered jersey across the line in 15th (18:07). Matt Malcom ’15 was the top freshman in Class C with his very impressive 23rd place (18:28).
Grant McPherson ’12 and Brian Trelegan ’12 emerged from the notorious “Pain Cave” on the final hill nearly together. They were working hard but when they were told that Cam was hurt and that one of them would probably be the team’s final scorer, they summoned hidden reserves and took off like a shot passing several runners even before the top of the hill. Grant won the race to the line (31st / 18:47) as he passed Cam (33rd / 18:50) in the final meters. Brian, meantime, as the team’s seventh runner, displaced the 4th and 5th place scorers of every other team in the meet. His time was 18:57, good for 36th place.
The team’s peformance won the championship by a wide margin. NYA’s 74 points put it well ahead of Waynflete (108), Boothbay (111), and Telstar (115), among others. Full results here.
Here is a nice mention in the Portland Press Herald (make sure you read to the end for the quote from Evan Kendall).