On Saturday, October 24, the Andover Middle School Cross Country team wrapped up its season at the 42nd Middle School State Championships in Londonderry. The meet featured 10 races with 3,000 runners from all over the state. The meet is a celebration of the efforts of all the athletes going back to summer runs on their own and through the season with their teammates.
The 10 races give every member of every team a chance to compete. There are races for boys and girls in grades six, seven, and eight for runners outside the team’s top seven runners. At the end of the day, there are Small School and Large School championship races for the top seven runners on each team.
Andover competes in the Small School Division, and we had complete teams in both boys and girls races for the first time ever.
Andover didn’t have any runners for the seventh and eighth grade races this year, so Fenn Davis got the day off to a strong start in the sixth grade boys race with a solid run.
Immediately following Fenn’s run was the Small School Championship for the girls. The Andover team consisted of Sophia Reynolds, Brynne Makechnie, Sasha Mackenzie, Morganne Budgett, Maura Kelly, Lily Menard, and Alex Plant.
The Girls Race
The girls toed the line in a field of 216. At the gun they were off on a long sprint to the trails and two loops of the course. As the runners emerged from woods the first time, Sophia was running in a large group of 12 girls chasing the defending champion, who had a 20 second lead. About 40 seconds later, Brynne, Morgan, Sasha, and Lily passed by, running well together in the middle of the pack. They were followed closely by Maura and Alex.
On the second lap, the leader from Northwood increased her lead and went on to repeat as individual champion. Sophia had moved to the front of the group battling for second and took control as they entered the final stretch to claim second place.
Everyone ran a great race on the challenging Londonderry course. Brynne improved her season’s best by 12 seconds. Sasha improved by almost two minutes, Morganne improved by one minute, Maura was better by 2:10, and Lily ran the whole way and improved by two minutes. Alex was solid, improving by 40 seconds.
Sophia had the surprise performance of the day at the meet, putting Andover on the New Hampshire Cross Country map and winning the first ever All State Top Ten plaque for Andover.
The girls finished 22nd of 29 teams and got their first state ranking.
The Boys Race
The boys were up next. The team consisted of Cyrus King, Jesse Niemeyer, Jeremy Johnson, Elliot Norris, Lagan Salathe, and Caleb Warzocha.
The boys toed the line in a field of 242. The boys got off well at the gun and ran well together in the front third of the race. They boys were lead by Cyrus, who ran a season’s best by 30 seconds, finishing in 77th overall. Jesse was next, in a solid run that matched his best for the year. Jeremy ran 45 seconds better for the year, in third for the team.
Elliot improved his best by a minute and a half, followed by Lagan who ran a minute better than any other time this year. Caleb was the final Andover finisher and improved his best time of the year by five seconds to round out the Andover scoring.
The boys finished 31st of of 34 teams and got their first state ranking.
The State meet was the end of a great season for the Andover Cross Country team. The team worked hard all year, and it showed. It’s a rare occurrence when everyone runs their best race of the year on the same day, but this team did it. They should be extremely proud of themselves.