Bromfield boys and girls sweep Mid-Wach C League cross-country championships

by John Osborn · Friday, November 1, 2024

Bromfield’s boys and girls cross-country runners dominated this year’s Midland-Wachusett Class C championships, held under cloudless skies last Saturday, Oct. 26, at Lake Dennison Recreation Area in Winchendon.

Both teams are once again league champions with first-place runners in each event and collecting two more Mid-Wach C plaques for the Bromfield trophy case. For the boys, it was their fourth straight championship; for the girls, their third.

Ben McWaters heads to a first-place finish for the boys with a time of 17:01.7. (Photos by Kate Wool)

Evelyn Wool and Rosie Bradley in their usual one, two positions. Wool went on to set a course record with a time of 18:55.73.

Senior Evelyn Wool won the girls race and set a new girls course record with a time of 18 minutes, 55.73 seconds. She was followed closely by junior Rosie Bradley who placed second with a time of 19:22.13, the second fastest time recorded for any of the four Mid-Wach girls championship races. Three additional Bromfield runners were among the first 10 to cross the finish line, contributing to a team score of 25, well ahead of second-place Tyngsborough with 53 points.

Sophomore Ben McWaters won the boys race with a time of 17:01.7, followed by three other Bromfield runners all of whom were among the top 10 for a combined team score of 31 points, soundly beating second-place Hudson’s 63.

Girls coach Matt Lynde wrote Sunday evening that although the team is focused on the upcoming Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association division and state championship races in November, Saturday’s race was significant. “It is the culmination of almost five months of training and preparation, starting with their summer program. It takes a lot of patience and discipline. It is pretty special to get to the end of October and see how all that hard work has paid off.”

Steady leadership

“There’s lots of credit to go around,” Lynde added. “Evelyn Wool continues to lead this team as steadily as a captain can,” he said. On Saturday, she and Rosie Bradley paced one another until the final stretch when Wool broke away. Bradley followed, more than a minute ahead of Tyngsborough’s third-place finisher. “They have been a one-two punch for this team all year. Our success in November starts with these two,” said Lynde.

The girls celebrate their third consecutive district title with a dip in Lake Dennison after the race.

Lynde praised the team’s five remaining runners, three of whom were among the event’s top 10 finishers, winning individual medals and finishing before the fifth-place runner of any other team. In cross-country racing, the places of a team’s top five finishers are counted, the sixth and seventh finishers are not.

Boys coach Marisa Steele said she was pleased with the team’s performance. “We had a solid run, good enough to get the job done,” she wrote to the Press Sunday evening. McWaters, Harrison Binnick, and Christian Johannesen have been members of all four of the team’s past league victories, with Liam Kemeza joining the group for the last three, she observed.

“I get to work with these four guys for one more year,” said Steele, but she was pleased with how well the team’s younger fifth, sixth, and seventh runners had progressed over the season. “Sophomores Shea Van Cleef and Kai Kemeza, and freshman Micah Wiebe have all made significant strides in closing the gap with our top four,” she said.

Keeping the spread in times between the first- and fifth-place runner as low as possible “is critical for success in the big meets,” Steele said, especially for the boys, where the competition is tougher. Steele observed that in the MIAA 3C state rankings for girls, there are only seven runners whose times are within two minutes of the fastest girl in the division, while for the boys, there are 34. In Saturday’s race the spread between the first and fifth Bromfield boy was 1:29; for the girls, 5:08

A ‘gutsy’ performance

Steele said McWaters’ performance Saturday was “gutsy,” given that he had not fully recovered from a recent illness. McWaters has moved up consistently in the league standings since he broke onto the scene with a 12th-place finish as a seventh-grader, she said. He finished fourth as an eighth-grader, was runner-up in last year’s Central Mass. championship as a freshman, and won the meet this year as a sophomore. He expects to be in top form for the upcoming MIAA meets in which he is currently ranked #1 in MIAA Division 3C standings.

The weather Saturday was picture-perfect, sunny, clear, and dry, drawing scores of parents and fans to the shores of Lake Dennison. Temperatures hovered near 58 degrees as the girls race got underway at 3:15 p.m., followed 30 minutes later by the boys. The 5K course consisted of two and a half loops, mostly flat, mostly on park roads, with a steep hill near the halfway point. The boys race was restarted once after a runner fell and caused a pileup as the surging field of 55 runners rounded the first corner of the course.

There was a breeze, and by 4:15 p.m., as race host and Bromfield athletic director Dave Boisvert handed out the last of the medals, runners and fans alike were reaching for hoodies and jackets. Undeterred by the chill, the Bromfield girls celebrated their win with a dive into Lake Dennison.

Bromfield is one of six schools in the Mid-Wach C League, and the meet is a fall classic held between the end of regular league season and the start of MIAA tournaments in November. Besides Bromfield, the league includes Hudson, Littleton, Lunenburg, Quabbin Regional, and Tyngsborough.

Central Massachusetts Athletic Coaches Association Division C championship, Oct. 26

Bromfield girls (25 points)