The Rhinos took to the road on a beautiful autumn day, to make the trek up to Easthampton, MA to battle a tough, 6-1 Williston Northhampton team. The Wildcats were able to challenge the top Taft runners, and it was a tight race through the mile and a half mark. Williston’s top two runners led the first half of the race, with Ian Staines (’20) just a stride behind and Joe Zarif (20) trailing the top pack. In the final mile, the race came down to the Williston and Taft captains; Nat Markey of Williston claimed the top spot (17:35), edging out Taft’s Ian Staines (17:48), followed by Oscar DeFrancis (Willistion - 18:11), and Joe Zarif (Taft 18:29). Down 4-6 through the first four runners, the middle three runners on Taft’s varsity roster were able to close out the race, starting with Mark Naguib (’20) finishing fifth overall, his top place this season. Mason Conto (’21) finished sixth, closing out his race with a strong kick, racing past a Williston runner in the final quarter mile. Joey Nihill (’21) had a remarkable return in his first race this season as he finished fifth for Big Red and eighth overall: an incredible feat considering that he was just cleared to return to running this week after a six week hiatus. Nate Dexter (’22) and YukSum Chan (’21) closed out the varsity race finishing 10th and 11th, and displacing Williston fifth runner and sealing the victory for the Rhinos (25-32). Andrii Torchylo (’21) and Jude Celebi (’22) led the JV effort, placing 2nd and 3rd, just one second apart from one another. Will Roberts (’22), Stef Kim (’20), Ben Lam (‘22), all ran hard, scoring seventh, eighth, and ninth in a close loss to the Wildcats (29-26). Harry Wang and Adam Pomerantz placed in the JV (13th and 14th respectively). Ed Liu continues to run well for Taft, running 22:52 on the tough course. Tiger Peng (’22), Kevin Liu (‘23), and Bob Wang (‘23), rounded out the efforts for Taft, all demonstrating grit and perseverance in their races. While there were no PRs on the day, Taft boys ran hard and worked as a team to secure a varsity victory, moving their record to 3-3. After a day of rest, the boys will turn their attention to Kent, who they will race at home on Parent’s Day, in the final dual meet of the season.