Young BArT Harriers Excel at League Championships
ADAMS, Mass. -- In its first year hosting the River Valley Athletic League cross country championships, the teams from BArT Charter were hospitable.
The course at the Greylock Glen? Slightly less so.
“We definitely have the hardest 5K course in the county, I think,” Berkshire Arts and Technology coach Bennjamin Griffin said on Wednesday afternoon. “There’s 550 feet of elevation gain, and there are four significant climbs on it. I think some of the kids come in a little underprepared if they’re from other schools.”
That cannot be said of individual champions Mac Sloan-Anderson of Greenfield’s Four Rivers and Delaney Bullock of Vermont’s Putney School.
Sloan-Anderson clocked in at 19 minutes, 31 seconds for the 3.1-mile circuit at the base of the commonwealth’s highest peak. Bullock finished in 21:05.
Each was a course record, Griffin said.
“The boys time, he beat the course record by a full minute,” Griffin said. “And on the girls side, the Putney girl, I think took 2 and a half minutes off the old record, finishing in just more than 21 minutes, which was really impressive on this kind of course.
“That probably translates to the low 18 [minute range] on a flat course.”
Sloan-Anderson led Four Rivers to a narrow victory over New Hampshire’s Dublin School, which Griffin termed an upset. On the girls side, Dublin placed four runners in the top 10 on the way to a team victory.
BArT’s boys and girls each placed third.
Finishing 41 seconds behind Sloan-Anderson in second place was BArT sophomore Thomas Cook.
“Mac, who came in first, is also a sophomore, which is good because they’ll push each other,” Griffin said. “They have a couple more years together.
“There’s not a lot of guys in our top five who are seniors, so most of these guys are coming back. They know what they have to do in the off-season to get ready.”
BArT freshman Will Schrade was his school’s second finisher, coming in 10th overall. BArT eighth-grader Elijah Alford was 15th, and sophomore Matthew Failla was 19th. Another sophomore, Joshua Doubiago, was 21st, and seventh-grader Ty Aubin was 22nd.
About two thirds of the Wolf Pack that ran on Wednesday at Greylock Glen are middle-schoolers, Griffin said. In fact, the average age of a BArT harrier is just shy of eighth grade.
Seventh-grader Simira Hanger placed fifth in the girls race with a time of 25:56. Sixth-grader Amelia Soler-Sala was ninth for BArT in 28:11.
Also placing in the top 20 for the Wolf Pack on Wednesday were sophomore Jesse Doubiago (13th), freshman Grace Krzanik (14th), sixth-grader Abigail Parker (15th) and freshman Kylie Taylor (18th).
Griffin was encouraged with the girls’ third-place finish and their reaction to it.
“I think the girls race was really really close, and it came down to one or two points between second and third,” he said. “Unfortunately, the BArT girls took third, but it's nice because I already see them in a circle over here probably talking about what the good things were, what the bad things were, how we're going to change things for the future.”
Boys Top 10
1. Mac Sloan-Anderson, Four Rivers, 19 minutes, 31 seconds.
2. Thomas Cook, BArT Charter, 20:12.
3. Calvin Bates, Dublin School, 20:18.
4. Oscar Gibson, Four Rivers, 20:47.
5. Duncan Steele-Maley, Putney School, 21:03.
6. Ian Baker, Dublin School, 21:20.
7. Gabe Marty, Eagle Hill, 21:22.
8. Casey Davey, Four Rivers, 21:26.
9. Jayden Skelly, Four Rivers, 21:35.
10. Will Scharde, BArT Charter, 22:09.
Girls Top 10
1. Delaney Bullock, Putney School, 21:05.
2. Amelia Opsahl, Stonleigh-Burnham, 22:40.
3. Lilly Bates, Dublin Schol, 25:32.
4. Agnes Macy, Dublin School, 25:34.
5. Simira Hanger, BArT Charter, 25:56.
6. Laura Hoffheimer, Dublin School, 26:36.
7. Fiona Hodges, Stoneleigh-Burnham, 27:40.
8. Miye Lampriere, Putney School, 27:51.
9. Amelia Soler-Sala, BArT Charter, 28:11.
10. Brianna Moore, Dublin School, 28:44.
