Cycling Claims New England Title
Nearing the end of their long and successful season, Exeter’s Varsity Cycling fought their way through a competitive pack of athletes at the New England Road Cycling League Championship Race and ended the day victoriously in first place last Wednesday.
Not only did the team clutch the overall title of Champions, but, thanks to prep Owen Loustau, upper Jimmy Allen and senior captain Bryce Morales, Exeter also placed in the Boys’ A category. Lowers Emily Kang and Joshua Lum each delivered outstanding performances and both placed second in the Girls’ and Boys’ C categories, respectively. This championship victory was especially meaningful, considering Exeter’s last reign as champions was five years ago and the team has only managed a second place finish for the past three years.
The team was filled with excitement leading up to the day of the big race, but went in focused and determined. Lum aptly described the mentality surrounding the race: “This was it. The last race that we had to do well in. We had expectations to win.” Upper Elizabeth Fier echoed Lum’s statements, saying “Since it was our last race of the season and the championship, we all really wanted to give it all we had and make sure we kept our first place spot in the league.”
Both Fier and Morales highlighted the possible threat posed by Andover on the day of the race as another thought on the team’s mind. “The margin between PEA and Andover was pretty tight going into the race, and the championship race is worth double the usual points, so in order to come in first we had to go all out,” Fier said. Morales added, “We knew we were on top of the league going in and just had to keep Andover at bay … you could tell they were hungry coming into the race.” Nevertheless, the team remained confident, since, “we knew we had a strong group of riders and that, as long as we all worked hard, we’d get a good result,” Morales said. Upper Skye Newhall affirmed that, indeed, “the pressure was on!”
The day of the race was marked by cloudy skies with sporadic spots of sunlight over the course. “It was definitely a tricky race,” Morales said. “It’s a relatively short course, so you have to go hard the whole time.” Lum described the course as “weird” with “both uphills and downhills, but more flat than our regular race.” Fier also described a few tricky tight turns, as well as the challenges presented by the wind, since “there was a pretty intense wind which, at points, was a nice tailwind and at other points a nasty headwind.” As Newhall remarked, “everyone was exhausted after they finished their category.”
Nevertheless, the intense effort was no doubt rewarded. “There was a lot of pain and hard work involved, so us winning as a team really helped pay it off,” Lum said. Fier echoed some of Lum’s sentiments, saying “Coach Jeff [Palleiko] had been pushing us hard on long Saturday rides, so to get the gratification of winning the league made it all worth it.” She added, “We have a lot of lovely seniors graduating this year too, so it felt good to be able to close out their last season at Exeter with a big W!” As a senior, Morales noted that, “After three years finishing second, I’m really glad we finally won. I’m so proud of the team, of the hard work and positive energy everyone has brought throughout the season.”
Coming off of the major win, Lum felt it was only appropriate to emphasize not only Exeter’s success, but also that “the cycling team is the best and most supportive athletics team on campus.”