​​​​​​​Bradley is MIAA Division 3 champion; boys are runners-up in championship race

Senior Rosie Bradley capped her cross-country career at Bromfield last Saturday, Nov. 15, with a decisive first-place finish in the 2025 Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association Division 3 girls cross-country state championship race at Devens. And led by junior Ben McWaters, the boys placed second, winning runner-up props among the 23 best teams in their division.

Bradley’s time was 18 minutes, 31.29 seconds, a few seconds behind her season record but a solid 18 seconds ahead of second-place finisher freshman Emma Genovese of Millis. After keeping pace with Genovese and Katherine Murray of Norwell for much of the race, Bradley made her move on the final hill of the course and led the way to the finish.

It was a somewhat dangerous move, Bradley admitted after the race. “But it was my last race, and I’m a senior, so I had to give it my all.” Her team finished ninth with 237 points. Greater Lowell Tech was the girls division champion with 136 points.

Runners-up

Led by junior Ben McWaters, the boys team placed second with 128 points. McWaters was third in the boys Division 3 race with a time of 16:20.68. Senior Nathaniel Henshaw of the Parker School won the race with a time of 15:43.51, leading the Parker Charter Panthers to a Division 3 championship.

Bromfield sophomore Kai Kemeza, with a time of 16:43.21, narrowly missed a spot on the podium, finishing less than four seconds behind the 15th-place runner from Hopedale. Boys coach Marisa Steel had special praise for senior Christian Johannesen, who placed 56th, just ahead of 57th-place Bromfield finisher Liam Kemeza. “He started way behind, but he made up so much ground. … Without him, we certainly wouldn’t have been able to get second place,” she said. The two boys beat Mount Greylock’s fourth and fifth runners, leaving the Berkshire school 10 points behind in third place.

Twenty-three schools participated in each of Saturday’s races, each a top finisher in last weekend’s MIAA D3 divisional meets. The day was sunny but chilly, with temperatures in the low 40s and a stiff wind. The field inside the 5,000-meter course resembled a medieval fair, filled with the colorful canopies and flags of teams from all corners of the state, along with 21st-century food trucks and sellers of MIAA meet paraphernalia. Parents, classmates, and fans lined the course, cheering, clapping, ringing cowbells, urging on the fastest and slowest runners alike. As Bradley crossed the finish line, the sounds of “Small Town Girl” played over the event’s sound system.

The Bromfield boys will lose three of their top seven runners to graduation this year: Harrison Binnick, Christian Johannesen, and Liam Kemeza. The girls will lose two: Bradley and Christina Kekis.

In speaking of the departing boys, Steele noted that she had been coaching some of them for six years. “I knew from the beginning they were a special group, and for them to pull together today on the last [Bromfield] cross-country race of their career, is just heartwarming.”