Boys’ XC Sweeps At Home Meet
In one of the most highly anticipated races of the season, Exeter Boys’ Cross Country faced Northfield Mount Hermon (NMH) this past weekend and dominated, tearing up the home course to walk away with solid victories for both Varsity and JV, winning 38-23 and 50-15, respectively. NMH was as one of the team’s biggest adversaries, having stolen the first place title from Exeter by one point last year. Big Red sought to avenge this loss, and avenge they did.
Undaunted and determined, the team was ready to compete come race day. As pointed out by lower Bradley St. Laurent, it was the team’s first dual meet, and first home meet. “This race was our first real test against one of the strongest teams in our league,” St. Laurent said. Upper Andrew Luke emphasized “we wanted our revenge for last year,” noting that the team, throughout training leading up to the meet, “kept that in the back of our minds.” The team stayed focused as always, as Luke noted that “Overall, [the meet] was business as usual. Pack up, compete.” Lower Alexander Kermath also pointed to the team’s goals of working together to create packs throughout the race to keep the pace competitive. “Many runners throughout the team were looking to push themselves to stick onto another teammate who was faster than them,” Kermath said.
In the end, a number of runners broke personal records, an outstanding accomplishment. Luke described the consistently fast pace from the start of the race, saying “We had a strong pack of our 4-8 together, each of us pushing each other along.” Personally, Luke’s race plan was “to start out faster than normal, which worked out well for me and the team.”
Kermath, another member of the aforementioned pack formed with Luke, uppers Croix Mikofsky and Phill Horrigan and lower Bradley St. Laurent said “the race went better than planned for me. Throughout the race, we stuck together and held great pace. This ended with personal records for all of us, including three of us breaking 17:00 minutes.” He elaborated, “Our coach had been encouraging us to pack up but it wasn’t until this race that we used this strategy to its full potential.”
Luke also praised his team members, pointing to “the boys in the front,” otherwise known as senior Will Coogan, uppers Varun Oberai and Connor Chen, before adding “a lot of the younger guys on the team broke PR’s as well in their first home race, which is awesome to see for the future.” Kermath continued, “Varun was our second-place runner and hit a massive PR along with Coogan who had a fantastic performance as always. On top of that, [preps] Mateo [Connelly] and Oliver [Brandes] grouped up and hit amazing personal records as well.” St. Laurent also highlighted Connelly and Brandes’ performances, saying “it has been amazing to watch how the whole team has already improved just halfway into the season.”
Overall, the team faced a few challenges on their home course. With only one hill loop, and an immense amount of hill training under their belts, Kermath explained, “One or two hills made the race a little bit more difficult but our training allowed us to glide through them.”
As for the challenges that lie ahead of the team, they are confident in their success for the rest of the season. “This race was a success across the board and proved, at least to me, that we have a lot of potential in the races to come,” Kermath said. As Luke put it, “Transitive property [says] they were the best team last year and we smoked them. We believe we can win it all this year. We were one point away last year.”
Upper Croix Mikofsky emphasized “we are going to need to keep working if we want to secure a victory at interschols.” Luke agreed, stating, “our team runs deep, and I believe we can beat anybody at our best.”