The NYA Boys cross-country team opened their season on Friday against Greely, Kennebunk, Sacopee Valley, Merriconeag, and Poland. On a sunny, cool day, the rolling 3.1-mile course over the trails of Twin Brook challenged the runners but was quite friendly to spectators who lined portions of the route.
NYA’s top runner, Matt Malcom ’15, surprised the crowd, and maybe himself a little, by winning the race overall.
Matt let the top Greely runner take the pace out hard, but reeled him in by the 2-mile mark before taking the lead for good in the last half mile. Matt won in the field of 67 runners, pulling away at the end, in a time of 17:48. 
This was nearly 30 seconds faster than his time on the same course at the start of last season. John LeBlanc ’15 also ran a strong race as NYA’s number two finisher. His time of 19:41 was nearly a minute faster than last year’s time and his final dash past several runners put him into 11th place. Hayley Cunningham ’15 also improved his time by nearly a minute. His 20:29 was good for 17th place overall. Fourth for NYA was Patrick Jackson ’15, who ran very well (21:33/27th) in his cross-country debut. Jin Yao ’14 rounded out the Panthers’ scorers in 21:54 (31st). Two freshmen completed NYA’s varsity seven on the day: Jack Kostelnik ’17 impressed with a solid 22:31 (41st) and Jake Malcom ’17 took the final varsity spot in 23:11 (46th).
Among the many newcomers, Alec Stuckey ’16 (23:15), Ethan Madore ’16 (25:07), and Jake McLennan (32:38) also got the season off to a great start.
T
he Panthers race again this coming Friday at Sacopee Valley. You can find directions to the meet here (and under “Directions” in the sidebar.)
Here are full results from the Twin Brook race.
Finally, you can enjoy more meet photos by Chris Mazzurco here.