Mount Greylock Boys, Girls Win Western Mass XC

NORTHFIELD, Mass. — Emily Kaegi blew away the competition and powered the Mount Greylock girls cross country team to a Western Massachusetts Division 2 championship on Saturday at Northfield Mountain.

 

The Mount Greylock boys completed a sectional sweep for the Mounties with a dominating performance that saw four members of the team finish in the top 10.

 

Carter Stripp, Tommy Kirby, Will Nolan and Sam Kobrin all placed in the top 10 for Mount Greylock. Stripp finished second, just seven seconds behind Lenox's Tucker McNinch (16 minutes, 56 seconds).

 

But the team competition was not nearly that close. Mount Greylock's 41 points were far ahead of second-place Lenox (69) and third-place Monument Mountain (121).

 

The Hoosac Valley boys were fourth with Travis Ciempa leading the way with a third-place time of 17:12.

 

All three of the top boys finishers — McNinch, Stripp and Ciempa — are juniors, setting the stage for another duel at next fall's sectional.

 

Kaegi, a senior, covered the 5-kilometer course in 19:20 -- nearly a minute better than runner-up Kathryn Wright of Monson (20:16).

 

The Mount Greylock girls finished with 68 points to finish first in front of Lenox (81) and Monument (111) in the 19-team field.

 

Monument's Heather Hassett and Lenox's Alice Najimy finished third and fourth, respectively, to lead their teams.

Kaegi was backed up by classmate Amalia Leamon, eighth-grader Emma Polumbo, freshman Niku Darafshi and junior Laura Galib.

 

Hoosac Valley's girls finished eighth, and Hoosac junior Sydnee Gallup led the way with an eighth-place finish of her own.

 

Running as an individual, McCann Tech junior Zoe Loughman finished 74th.

 

The Berkshire Arts and Technology Charter School finished in 16th place. Eighth-grader Heather Perkins was BArT's top finisher, coming in 69th out of 142 girls finishing the race.

 

The BArT boys were 20th behind a 36th-place finish by junior Dylan Quinn.

 

McCann Tech's boys were 22nd in the 26-team boys field. The top Hornet was sophomore Lucas Yell in 54th place.

 

In the Division 1 girls race, Pittsfield junior Lauren Farry finished sixth to lead the Generals to a fourth-place finish. Farry finished in 20:34. Anna Kaplan of Amherst-Pelham won the girls race in 19:56 to lead her team to victory by a wide margin — 28 points to second-place Longmeadow's 68.

 

Amherst-Pelham's boys also won the team competition, beating out Mennechaug by a margin of 87-106. Minnechaug's Samuel Conway won the individual competition in 16:28; Wahconah's Marcus Duncan was the top Berkshire County finisher, coming in 10th, to lead his team to a fourth-place finish.