Tag: merrimack valley conference

LOWELL – After winning the Merrimack Valley Conference championship meet every year from 2010-23 (excluding the COVID year), the Lowell High boys cross country team fell to fourth a year ago.

Although Lowell rebounded with strong performances at the divisional and all-state meets, the program anxiously waited 365 days for a little redemption against their league foes.

And that happened Saturday.

Lowell took back the league championship meet title by compiling 42 points, beating out strong North Andover (51) and Billerica (75) teams to earn their 14th title in the past 15 years.

“The fourth-place finish last year never sat well with us,” said head coach Scott Ouellet. “We didn’t know why it went so wrong for us that day. That was as bad as we have ever done. To be honest, we tried a bunch of new things, and it was a disaster. It was a true case of over-coaching. I think that absolutely fueled us today.”

The Red Raiders were on fire with five of the top 14 finishers, led by senior James Kelly, who for the second straight year finished second overall in 16:06 over the 2.95 mile home course.

“This is our home, and we can’t lose here. We just can’t lose here,” said Kelly.

Kelly finished 11 seconds behind Billerica sophomore Mason Niles, the overall winner in 15:55. He said he woke up Saturday morning knowing he was going to be crowned the individual champion.

“I gained so much confidence heading into this race. In the MVC (dual meets) I only lost to my teammate once, so I knew that I was going to be the person to beat so I was just trying to race like it,” he said. “Winning this over a lot of good runners in our league really gives me a lot of confidence going into the divisional and All-State meets.

“I’ve had good results this year and I’m running fast so even if I didn’t win, I think I would still have that confidence. (The extra confidence) helps you a lot and it definitely helped me out today.”

After Niles and Kelly came a mix of runners from Lowell, Billerica and North Andover. The Red Raiders were able to pull out the victory thanks to season best performances from Samuel De Souza (4th, 16:11), Tim Schribman (9th, 16:36), Charlie Mirabel (13th, 16:46) and Elijah Calderon (14th, 16:55).

“We got five guys under 17 minutes on a course with two hills, you get that and that’s a sign of a good team,” said Ouellet.

Kelly added, “I knew that we had a good chance of winning it, but we knew that North Andover was a good team. We knew it would be hard, but we did it.  They have such a tight pack, so it was going to be really close, but we have been working all season for this.”

Ouellet added that the home cooking benefitted his runners.

“We’re all Lowell kids, the coaches and the kids so being here gives us that extra one percent,” he said. “It just means a little something extra being here at Shedd Park. Every Lowell kid grows up playing sports at Shedd Park, whether it’s baseball, tennis lessons, the parks and recreation department and when I was a kid, we were swimming in the pool and running the cross country races. Every single kid in Lowell grows up playing sports at Shedd Park. To run here today in a big meet with all these people here, there’s just that extra one percent that we get.”

Besides Niles, Sahil Gandhi was fifth in 16:11 and Shane Leslie was seventh in 16:31 to lead Billerica to a third-place finish.

Central Catholic was sixth with Noah Ruggiero finishing 17th. Chelmsford was seventh with Whitley Will finishing 23rd and Tewksbury was eighth behind Steven Oppedisano, who was 11th in 16:42.

The top 12 finishers earned All-Conference honors.

Girls

As expected, Billerica dominated.

Billerica is absolutely loaded with tremendous talent from top to bottom and the Indians have dominated even without their best runner, Gianna McGowan, who is out injured. Despite that, the Indians had its five top runners finish in the top eight spots, while runners six, seven and eight were ninth, 10th and 11th overall, respectively.

Only Central Catholic’s Kyla Breslin (1st) and the Chelmsford duo of Mia McCusker (5th) and Kate Leonard (7th) ruined the perfect sea of green and white jerseys crossing the finish line.

“It’s easier when you look next to you and it’s just a teammate,” said sophomore Kylie Donahue, who was second. “That’s how you work together and work with them. It’s easier when you have so many girls on your team right with you and we can count on them to work together as a pack.”

Donahue was second in 18:46, just four seconds behind Breslin, who took the title for the second straight year.

“Sometimes I do go out too fast and then break that second mile so today I was really hoping to keep (the pace of the Billerica runners). I know that I have a good last stretch and was hoping to then just outrun them. But those Billerica girls are such tough competition,” said Breslin, a Lowell resident.

Billerica eighth-grader Maya Niles was third in 18:56.5 and was followed by Caitlyn Donahue (4th, 18:58.2), Hartlie Siegal (6th, 19:32.5) and Madelynn Larosa (8th, 19:47.1) to account for the impressively low 23 points for the team score, while freshman Evelyn Wesling (9th, 19:48.1),  sophomore Sabrina Gorski (10th. 19:56.1) and junior Emma Ausilio (11th, 19:57.5) also earned All-Conference honors.

“As a team we knew that we would most likely be able to win even if one of us had an off day because our team is so strong,” said Kylie Donahue. “We have so much depth that anyone can just hop in if someone is having an off day. It’s a little bit of pressure individually but as a team we know what we can do.”

The eight Billerica runners consist of three juniors, three sophomores, a freshman and an eighth-grader.

“We work a lot on mindset and focus on our team, focusing on each other and finding one another during a race,” said Billerica head coach Cullen Hagan. “We are still really working on that because we can improve a lot there. A lot of the times we’re strung out, so we really need to solidify that, so we run together more. It’s such an advantage when you have a team like this and have teammates who can pack it in like that. It’s always a work in progress and we can always do better with it.

“We try to strive to be the best we can at that present meet. To us, there’s no such thing as a big meet. Today is just another meet. You don’t want to build it up so much, so it becomes this overwhelming thing, because it’s just another race and we have seen these teams throughout the season. We know it’s such a good league and we look forward to the competition.”

Central Catholic finished second with Breslin and Calista King (11th, 20:25). Chelmsford was fifth with McCusker (19:16) and Leonard (19:44). Lowell was sixth with Ella Machado (20th, 20:58) and Tewksbury was eighth behind freshman Maeve Burns (15th, 20:17).