On Saturday October 21st the Andover Middle School Cross Country competed in the Division III State Cross Country Championship. The meet is part of a big day of middle school cross country in NH where 41 teams compete in Division III at Coe Brown in Northwood and 38 teams compete at Londonderry High School for Division I and II. It was also an unseasonably warm day with bright sun and mid 70’s. It was not ideal weather for fast times but it was a great day for racing.
Andover had athletes in three races: the boys non scoring race and girls and boys championship races. Caleb Warzocha and Nick Horbert competed in the boys non scoring race. They kicked the day off in style running together and running well. Nick ended up edging Caleb with his best time of the year finishing in 16:54 to Caleb’s 16:58. On the heels of that good start, the girls were up in the Championship race.
An early goal of the girls team was to have a full team of 5 for States and they looked like they were going to make it as all were working hard and running well but illness prevented them from fielding the full team. Toeing the line were Paige Makechnie, Violet Kraft Lund Marley, Trinity Delaney, and Sophia Reynolds. They got a surprise visit from the Merrimack Valley High School Girls Cross Country team at the start to wish them luck. Then they lined up and were off and running with 194 other runners. Sophia was the favorite and went right to the lead as the race entered the woods. Trinity was right behind her in about 20th place with Violet and Paige settling into the pack. All the girls ran great races, Trinity improved over 30 seconds and 20 places in her second State meet. Paige and Violet ran great in their first State meet efforts. However the day belonged to Sophia. She had finished second in her previous two State meets but broke through to win the Division III State Championship in 12:10. She’s the first Division Champion from Andover in the 44 years of the Middle School Cross Country Championships.
The boys were up next fielding a nearly full team of 6 despite missing a couple runners to illness as well. Jack Colvin, Dante Mori, Enrico Mori, Mychal Reynolds, Evan Hill, Henry Wagler lined up for Andover in the field of just over 200. The boys race was the most competitive of the day. It featured the defending National Champion and ultimately saw 14 boys break 12 minutes. It was by far the toughest of the three middle school championship races for the day. The very young Andover team did a great job. They were led by Jack and Dante both running strong right in the middle of the field. Mychal, Evan, Enrico, and Henry rounded out the scoring. The boys team matched Andover’s best finish in the State meet with a 28th place finish.