Roughly 300 runners from 43 different schools anxiously stood on the starting line of the New England Championships in Boston on Saturday. Twenty-four minutes and 54 seconds later, Christian Escareno '10 finished with the head of the pack, leading the men's cross country team to a first-place finish at Franklin Park.
Despite gruelingly hot temperatures the Bears finished with four runners in the top 20. Escareno finished third, Ryan Graddy '08 placed eighth with a time of 25:24, followed shortly by Ari Zamir '08 in 16th place (25:37), and Stephen Chaloner '09 in 20th place (25:47).
"We went in wanting to win the men's New England Championships and we did just that," wrote Head Coach Craig Lake in an e-mail to The Herald. "I was most impressed by our depth and our younger guys really stepping it up. We had a number of guys run personal bests of 30-45 seconds - which is phenomenal."
Escareno, who also led the Bears with his 12th-place finish at the Iona Meet of Champions on Sept. 22, had his best finish of the season, trailing only Boston College's Patrick Mellea and Timothy Ritchie.
"I love racing more than anything else in life, and having a go against 300 other runners, on one excessively hot day, was pure bliss," wrote Escareno in an e-mail.
"In the end, many of our men did not have a good day, but we still beat 42 teams for the win. It makes me wonder what we would be capable of if we all had one perfect day," she said.
The men's sub-varsity team also won its race. Leading the pack was Sam Sheehan '11, who won the sub-varsity race (25:45) while also beating a personal best by 45 seconds. Colin Brett '10 (25:57) bettered his personal best by 50 seconds and John Loeser '10 (25:57) and John Haenle '11 (26:03) both shaved 40 seconds off their previous times on the course.
Carrying on the weekend's string of personal best times, several members of the women's cross-country team delivered solid performances in the New England Championships as well.
The Bears chose to race only their freshmen runners, but still managed to place 15th overall in the varsity race. The upperclassmen used this weekend as an opportunity to rest for upcoming races.
Caitlin Clark '11 finished first for the Bears with a personal best of 19:25, beating her previous best by 45 seconds.
Shortly following her were Megan Fitzpatrick '11 (19:32) and Cara Harrison '11 (19:55), both also setting personal bests.
"On the women's side, we held out our top runners and will race again at (Pennsylvania State University) this coming Friday," Lake wrote.
After the Penn State race, both teams will compete at the Ivy League Heptagonal Championships on Oct. 26, in Van Cortlandt Park in New York City.
