MIAA cross country: Amherst girls defend 2B title

NORTHFIELD — The Amherst Regional and Northampton cross country teams represented western Massachusetts well during the MIAA Division 2B Divisional boys and girls cross country championships at Northfield Mountain on Saturday.

The Amherst girls won the 2B girls race with 79 points, edging out second-place Northampton, which totaled 86 points.

Similarly, the Hurricanes secured second place in the 2B boys race with 138 points, while the Blue Devils turned in a strong team effort as well, earning third-place honors with 165 points.

Both squads for each school earned a spot in next week’s MIAA State Meet (also known as the Meet of Champions), with top-seven team finishes.

“Northampton was really tough this year,” Amherst girls co-head coach Ron Jacobs said. “They were really good competition. We came in hoping to have a positive, solid day. We’re really looking ahead to next week, so we just wanted to get some confidence. We ran very strong one through seven and we’re looking forward to a good race next week.”

Amherst’s pack-running shined yet again as four of its top five runners placed within the top-16 overall, with Ella Austin’s 11th-place finish in 21 minutes, 26 seconds leading the charge for the ‘Canes.

“They really work with each other, especially on a tough course like this, we practiced running on a lot of hills this season and Northfield is a beast of a course,” Amherst girls co-head coach Elena Betke-Brunswick said. “We really focused on pacing ourselves on the hill [and] working with our teammates.”

Genevieve Dole (12th, 21:27), Lilly Pope (14th, 21:33) and Nina Holden (16th, 21:46) made up Amherst’s trademark pack, along with Austin, before Marit MacDonald (26th, 22:29) came in as the Hurricanes’ fifth scorer.

Northfield Mountain is a notoriously difficult course due to its significant elevation changes. Runners are forced to run uphill for most of the first mile, then they must endure another challenging incline just before the finish line.

The course will weed out any runners not up to the task in short order, however, Amherst powered through and cemented its spot among statewide competition once more, successfully defending its 2B title.

“We have four [runners] that weren’t on varsity last year, so we have a long tradition and they can sort of draw on the tradition of success on the team,” Jacob said. “They’ve seen other people run really well and they’re doing a great job. The team is rolling.”

The Hurricanes won last year’s meet with 97 points at at the Willard Park Complex in Devens.

Mairead O’Neil was the top Hampshire County finisher in the 2B girls race as the Blue Devil took second place in 19:24.

O’Neil paced the lead pack for a majority of the race until Holliston’s Lucy Downin pulled away during the final straightaway to claim first place.

“I just wanted to stay with everybody, at least for the first mile,” O’Neil said. “I feel like the race today went kind of slow at first, I guess for the hill.”

Northampton’s five scorers all placed within the top-27 as Maddalena Figueroa-Starr (17th, 21:55), Rosalind Stracco (18th, 22:01), Zea Meerbergen (22nd, 22:17) and Katherine Munson (27th, 22:37) crossed the finish line after O’Neil.

“This has been one of the best seasons we’ve had as a team,” O’Neil said. “It’s been really great. Amherst has always been our competitors. We were hoping to beat them, but they’re really great.”

O’Neil obtained 10th place during the 2024 divisional meet.

On the boys side, Amherst’s Calvin Miller cruised to third place overall in a time of 16:42, proving to be as reliable as they come for a team’s lead runner with another noteworthy race. Miller won the Western Mass. Class A boys race two weeks ago at Stanley Park in Westfield and has been the Hurricanes fastest finisher all season long.

After Miller, Amherst didn’t run as clean of a race, according to boys head coach Chris Gould.

“Most of the people who ran today ran well,” Gould said. “We didn’t have Nico Lisle today… so that hurt us immediately. Peter Nedeau had a very tough day, got a cramp part-way through the race and it just wrecked him for the second half of the race, so he was no where near where he would want to be in this case. But he hung tough, I think he was our fourth guy, but it was definitely a race, as a coach, it was the first time this year I had to wait a long time for the next runners to come [by].”

Freshman Otis Fairey followed Miller in 16th place in 17:31, then Sam Woodruff (29th, 18:07), Nedeau (38th, 18:24) and Holden Castenson (56th, 18:47) counted as the Hurricanes’ five scorers.

Due to Lisle’s unavailability, freshman Jeremiah Hayslip was substituted into the starting seven at the last minute as the youngster was informed he would be running in the divisional meet at 10:15 a.m., per Gould, less than three hours before the starting gun was scheduled to go off.

Hayslip did quite well, all thing’s considered, as the freshman finished as the Hurricanes’ sixth runner in 18:52 for 59th place. Add in the difficult course conditions and the fact that Saturday’s meet was Hayslip’s first ever varsity race and it underscores the ninth-grader’s unforeseen performance even more.

“I didn’t realize [Gould] would ask me to do it,” Hayslip said. “I was like, the night before, there’s no way I’m going to be running varsity tomorrow… and I think I did better than I expected, too.”

Hayslip mentioned he didn’t really have a gameplan for Saturday’s race, rather, the freshman tried to just emulate his more experienced teammates.

Additionally, Hayslip noted the hills were a challenge, but the Hurricane felt a “satisfying” feeling once at the top.

Amherst probably would not have won even if they did run at full strength on Saturday. Groton Dunstable claimed the boys 2B title convincingly with 59 points. Its top-five runners finished within the top 20 and its top seven came in within the top 45.

Nevertheless, Gould was relieved his team found a way to earn a state qualification spot.

“We’re a good team, we really are,” Gould said. “A team that was very heavy up front would have beaten us today and Groton Dunstable did that. We think if we can put it all together, we can compete with them and Longmeadow.

“I’m very proud of the way we pulled together,” Gould said. “It was a little scary to watch it go that way, but they pulled it together.”

Northampton nearly upended Amherst as its top five of Henry Daggett (10th, 17:13) Gus Frey (24th, 17:58), Owen Daggett (33rd, 18:15), Shea O’Neil (50th, 18:36) and Isaiah Carnevale (53rd, 18:42) helped the Blue Devils to their third-place finish.

The state meet will take place in Devens next Saturday, Nov. 15.