By Blaise Siefer — Sports Contributor
Championship season is right around the corner for the CCHS boys cross country team.
After five regular-season meets, the October 25 Dual County League (DCL) Championship, and the November 2 Massachusetts State Track Coaches Association Frank Mooney Invitational, the team goes into do-or-die mode at 1:15 p.m on Saturday, November 9, at the MIAA D1B Championship at Northfield Mountain.
The team is hitting its stride at just the right time. Despite a few regular-season losses, CCHS placed second at the DCL Championships with 62 points, trailing only Newton South (40 points) and beating out third-place Lincoln-Sudbury (86 points).
“The DCL Championship went very, very well,” said head coach Mary McCabe. “Our strength is the pack — we’ve had five different people be our No. 1 guy on a different day. That’s really, really unusual.”
With 42 athletes on the team, including a strong cohort of juniors, CCHS relies on its depth. Top performers include freshman Cameron Smack, sophomores Sawyer Bout and Braeden Quayle, and juniors Joey Bodenrader, Luke Crounse, Charles MacDonald, and Brendan Quinn.
Leading this group are senior captains Grady Flinn, Henry Flint, Ranai Shah, and Sam Snell, who have unified the team, McCabe said. This year’s team, on average, is racing a minute faster than in comparable meets last season.
In Saturday’s D1B meet, CCHS will compete against powerhouses Arlington, Natick, North Andover, and Wellesley. The team must finish in the top seven in its division to qualify for the statewide Meet of Champions. Last year, CCHS finished eighth.
“We had an off day — it came down to literally hundredths of a second,” McCabe said. “At the end of that race, we talked about what that would mean next year for us. How are we going to get back to where we belong?”
The team has run two workouts at Northfield, which gives them confidence entering Saturday. McCabe said the team’s preparation in June, July, and August also will give them a boost. Over the summer, the team logged more than 4,000 cumulative miles.
“Championship teams are made in the summer,” said McCabe. “Cross country is just strange that way. If they were able to get the miles in during the summer, I thought we would have a good fall.”
If the CCHS boys do qualify for the Meet of Champions, they will run on Saturday, November 16, in Fort Devens. There, they would race the top-seven performers from the D1A and D1C meets as well, probably including DCL rivals Cambridge and Newton South, as well as reigning state champion Brookline.
“I’m really impressed with their preparation and the effort they keep bringing each day,” McCabe said.
“It’s hard to put three hours of work in at the end of the school day. Every day, people are bringing really good energy and effort to practice,” she said. “They aren’t just going through the motions.”
