Culver, Pacheco Lead Fields; Mount Greylock Boys and Girls Roll
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. – For Lenox senior Alice Culver, familiarity bred success when it comes to the Mount Greylock cross country course.
Culver jumped out early and stayed there on Wednesday, taking first place by a wide margin in a five-team competition.
Afterward, she said that the North County circuit was not always one of her favorites.
“I tried to start out pretty fast but not too fast,” Culver said. “I wanted to conserve energy because this course always feels pretty long to me because there’s no repeats, right? It’s just like one big loop. So I tried to save energy for the end, especially that last 800, and I really tried to pick it up when I was in the woods there.
“[The course] is growing on me. I used to not really like it. But, honestly, today it felt better than it has in the past. I felt good out there. And it felt shorter. It went by pretty fast today.”
With a 6 minute, 42 second mile pace, Culver made the course seem pretty short. Her time of 20:50.58 was 1:20 ahead of runner-up Adriana Carasone of Mount Greylock.
But Carasone and the Mounties got the team win, edging the Millionaires by seven points in the first meeting between the longtime rivals.
Mount Greylock picked up three wins on the day, beating Hoosac Valley and Lee. Monument Mountain’s girls also went undefeated on the day, earning wins against Lee and Hoosac Valley behind a third place finish from Amelia Desilets.
In the boys race, the team outcomes were similar, with Mount Greylock going 3-0 on a day that included a narrow, four-point win over Lenox.
Ollie Swabey and Andrew Petropulos led the way for the Mounties, placing second and third respectively.
The top individual on the boys side was Monument Mountain’s Everett Pacheco, who came home in 17:25.95, about 11 seconds ahead of Swabey.
Pacheco appeared to be neck-and-neck with Swabey until just before the pair entered the woods for the final time for an 800-meter finishing loop.
“I passed him on the shoulder up there, and he kind of rode me into the woods, and then I just sprinted ahead sort of thing,” Pacheco said.
“Being so close to the finish line, knowing the end was in sight, knowing that he wants it and that I want it – I just had that gut intuition in me and that drive and just sort of kicked it in.”
Pacheco said the pair pulled ahead of the field pretty early on.
“We sort of planned it out beforehand, just taking the first mile hard, and executed that,” he said.
Pacheco led Monument Mountain to a pair of dual meet wins, over Lenox and Hoosac Valley.
The biggest team wins of the day belonged to the hosts as Mount Greylock’s boys and girls each improved to 8-0 in dual meets this fall.
Swabey, Andrew Petropulos, Rafa Mellow-Bartels, Zeke Singer and Finnegan Noyes scored for Mount Greylock in its four-point win over the defending state champs from Lenox, who got fourth-, fifth- and sixth-place finishes from Benjamin Harwood, Samuel GEller and Cormac Mathews, respectively.
Mount Greylock’s girls placed six runners in the top 10. After Carasone, the Mounties scored runs from Paige Tudor, Elly Wilkinson, Vera De Jong and Chase Hoey. Riley Dickinson, in 10th, helped displace a Lenox runner in their dual meet.
“It was great,” Mount Greylock coach Ann Barber said. “Our girls were a little nervous to run on their course for the first time this season, and it’s always a tough one against Lenox.
“We lost a lot of seniors and a lot of kids to private school [from 2022]. But we have a solid group of seventh graders who are filling in and exceeding our expectations. … Ellie Wilkinson and Riley Dickinson have been stepping up pretty well. Avery Wied, coming off a little bit of an injury. But we had [sophomore Adriana Carasone] and [junior Vera De Jong] who looked great, [ninth-grader Paige Tudor], they all look great.”
Lenox’s boys and girls, who both slipped to 5-1 on Wednesday, also looked strong, even in defeat. Culver said her and her teammates knew that Wednesday would be a big early season date, but they have a lot of season still to come.
“We knew this was going to be a big meet with Greylock and Monument here, and it’s our first time meeting Greylock,” she said. “We knew it was going to be a big matchup. So we were kind of getting ready for it all week. And we wanted to do well today.
“But we knew that it’s not the end all/be all. If it goes well, it goes well. But if it doesn’t, we really trying to direct our focus on the post-season anyway.”
Boys Team Scores
Mount Greylock 15, Hoosac Valley no score
Mount Greylock 15, Lee 50
Mount Greylock 26, Lenox 30
Monument Mountain 15, Hoosac Valley no score
Monument Mountain 17, Lee 46
Boys Top 25
1. Everett Pacheco, MM, 17:25.95; 2. Ollie Swabey, MG, 17:37.19; 3. Andrew Petropulos, MG, 17:49.57; 4. Benjamin Harwood, Lnx, 17:50.11; 5. Samuel Geller, Lnx, 18:25.18; 6. Cormac Mathews, Lnx, 18:27.19; 7. Rafa Mellow-Bartels, MG, 18:27.31; 8. Owen Ames, Lnx, 19:07.16; 9. Zeke Singer, MG, 19:40.86; 10. Autumn Higa, MM, 19:51.77; 11. Finnegan Noyes, MG, 19:56.29; 12. Luke Irwin, MG, 19:58.24; 13. Max Mozian, Lnx, 20:06.87; 14. Lucas Faggioni, MM, 20:18.17; 15. Connor McCormack, Lnx, 20:20.83; 16. Jude Bakija, MG, 20:24.19; 17. William Keefe, Lnx, 20:47.30; 18. Silas Sims, MG, 20:47.46; 19. Jackson Carhart, Lnx, 20:56.93; 20. Jolyan Tessier, Lnx, 21:15.55; 21. Ivan Healey, Lnx, 21:15.91; 22. Boaz Slater Lee, MG, 21:16.95; 23 Zinedine Doucette, MG, 21:26.23; 24. Andrew Holland, MG, 21:26.58; 25. Finnegan Voisin, MG, 21:27.57.
Girls Team Scores
Mount Greylock 15, Hoosac Valley no score
Mount Greylock 15, Lee, 50
Mount Greylock 24, Lenox 33
Monument Mountain 15, Hoosac Valley no score
Monument Mountain 19, Lee 40
Girls Top 25
1. Alice Culver, Lnx, 20:50.58; 2. Adriana Carasone, MG, 22:10.86; 3. Amelia Desilets, MM, 22:45.70; 4. Paige Tudor, MG, 23:11.18; 5. Elyssa Scrimo, Lnx, 23:12.01; 6. Elly Wilkinson, MG, 23:13.15; 7. Vera De Jong, MG, 23:21.50; 8. Lila Kousch, Lnx, 23:27.07; 9. Chase Hoey, MG, 23:38.64; 10. Riley Dickinson, MG, 23:41.74; 11. Rae Geddes, MM, 24:03.33; 12. Fiona Ward, Lnx, 24:05.45; 13. Nora Schoeny, Lnx, 24:06.77; 14. Katherine Goss, MG, 24:16.01; 15. Madeleine Rocheleau-Holmes, MM, 24:37.70; 16. Coralea Lash-St. John, MG, 24:37.80; 17. Kira Johnson, Lee, 24:53.05; 18. Ava Lopez, Lee, 25:07.23; 19. Gianna Love, Lnx, 25:08.01; 20. Elizabeth Spellman, MG, 25:17.11; 21. Avery Wied, MG, 25:43.34; 22. Allison Lefkowitz, Lnx, 25:54.90; 23. Ava Lau, MG, 25:59.67; 24. Leah Basnet, Lnx, 26:03.11; 25. Ava Mozian, Lnx, 26:10.06.