At its only home meet of the season on Friday, the NYA boys’ cross-country team gave the crowd plenty to cheer, with an exciting race up front, a total of ten personal records, and a satisfying victory over Waynflete.
The Panthers took advantage of the fast Royal River Park 5k course, racing under perfect conditions with impressive results. Matt Malcom ’15 led the way, starting quickly enough to lead the whole pack for the first mile. By the time the runners emerged onto the baseball field, Matt had settled into third. A very strong push in the last half mile brought him to within .2 seconds of Cape’s number 2 runner. Matt’s great effort resulted in a significant personal record – 16:52, the first time he has broken 17 minutes in a 5k. NYA’s second and third runners also ran very well. John LeBlanc ’15 cut a minute and a half from last week’s time, to take 14th in 18:53. Haley Cunningham ’15 continued his great start to the season; his third mile surge brought him a new personal record of 18:54 and 15th place. Patrick Jackson ’15 and Jin Yao ’14 also collected PRs on Friday. Patrick cut more than a minute from his old PR, finishing Friday with 20:14 in 25th. Jin was close behind, running very well for 20:18, a new 5k personal record, for 26th place. LT Dahia ’14, running a gutsy race (20:57) and Andy Liu ’14 (21:19, a PR) rounded out NYA’s varsity seven.
Jake Malcom ’17 continued to impress in his freshman year, cutting a minute and a half from his previous best time (21:29). Alec Stuckey ’16 also dropped his PR by nearly a minute on Friday (22:08), while Ethan Madore ’16 broke 25:00 for the first time (24:11). Ira Li ’14 made his cross-country debut in 28:14 and Jake MacLennan ’17 smashed his PR by a minute, breaking 30:00 for the first time in 29:42.
The team took third place in the meet, which was won by Cape Elizabeth (22 points), followed by Fryeburg (45). NYA had 71 points and Waynflete finished with 108.
Full results are here. Here are more photos.
Overall, it was a great day and a fine setup for the large invitational races of the next two weeks. On Friday, the team will travel to Manchester, NH for Saturday’s races. Anyone looking for a lovely fall New England road trip is welcome to come cheer us on and take in the atmosphere of big time cross-country racing.