Photo by Will Lavey
Hiromu Sakuma
Sports Reporter
Despite a lack of off-season training due to the cancellation of outdoor track, the boy’s cross-country team had been able to maintain solid mileage throughout the summer (some athletes running around 100 miles per week). The work has definitely paid off. Both JV and Varsity have been running at a level like never before, so expectations were high coming into the first race of the season at Cold Spring Park against NSHS rival Acton-Boxborough.
On account of COVID-19, the runners were split into groups of three and four. There were six groups of three runners and two groups of four runners. Each group was then set off with a one minute delay from one another. Because of this unusual circumstance, it was questionable whether the team was going to be able to perform at a high level. As usual, South competed to the best of their ability regardless of the circumstances.
Senior Brett Miller cruised past the finish line, running an incredible 16:47 5k, destroying his AB opponents. Miller came in first for the Varsity race. Cross Country captain, Will Lavey, ran a 17:01, crushing his personal record at the course by over 1 minute. Will came in third overall. Though the work put in for the race was obviously a huge part of the reason for the boys’ success, the “hype-up” circle (a ritual that the Newton South does before every meet) played a large role as well. Captains Daniel Glickman and Will Lavey stood in the middle of the huddle (socially distanced) while making speeches to boost the energy of the runners going into the race. Lavey announced before the race, “We’ve been studying all summer, and this today is our big test that we’ve been studying so hard for. Are we gonna get a C? No. Are we gonna get a B? We don’t settle for Bs! Are we gonna settle for an A minus!? We don’t settle for A minus! So let’s go get this *explicit* A plus!”
With everyone on Varsity breaking their personal record by a significant amount the season is looking very bright for the boys X-Country team.
