Boy's Cross Country Cruises Past NMH

EXETER - On a wet and windy day, boys’ cross country dominated at home yet again, securing a strong victory over Northfield Mount Hermon on Parents’ Weekend. Exeter held nine out of the top ten spots in this first dual meet, with Tyler Courville ‘14 finishing first, Sam Gray ‘14 third and Quincy Tichenor ‘15 fourth.“Our team performed very well this weekend,” senior co-captain TJ Hodges said.“There were several personal records, and again we had four runners below the Hall of Fame time: Tyler Courville, Sam Gray, Quincy Tichenor, as well as me; and two runners were right behind, Holden Hammontree ‘15 and John Kennealy ‘14, who both showed great improvement. Though two varsity NMH runners were not running that day, it was still a great confidence booster, as Tyler Courville ended up beating their number one runner, Mohammed Hussein, and Sam Gray was right behind him.”Hammontree, who has made a comeback after time off, agreed with Hodges. “The team performed well amid cold, rainy conditions,” he said.Along with the great performance, some members of the team have started to notice that the depth of the roster is improving.“The race today went well. We officially have eight guys who can run sub seventeen minute 5k’s and a few more who are extremely close to that milestone,” upper Max Larnerd said.But Big Red still has challenges to overcome, and if they wish to continue this dominant streak, then they must train and prepare for the competition.“While our junior varsity team did well, I think there needs to more focus on them, especially with such a dominating varsity team,” Larnerd said. “We need the junior varsity runners to outperform the opponents as well.”In addition, Hammontree pointed out a weakness of NMH this weekend that won't always exist.“With a few of Northfield Mount Hermon’s varsity guys sitting out we destroyed them, but at Interschols they won’t be injured. Things are still interesting,” he said.In the end, it seems Big Red’s intense practices have paid off. Last Wednesday, they competed against St. Paul's with three of their varsity runners injured, yet Exeter still came out on top.“Our team is growing stronger as we begin to focus on our speed training and gain a competitive spirit for Interschol’s,” Hodges said.The team’s next race is away at Deerfield this coming Saturday. This is the only team that Big Red has yet to face this season, so it should be interesting to see how they perform.The boys look to continue running at a high level against Big Green, and they hope to continue their winning streak that stretches back to the fall of 2011.