Despite missing one runner, and two others feeling very much under the weather, Boys Varsity Cross Country performed exactly as expected at the NE Championships by earning 8th place in the 13 school meet. Leading the way for us was captain Jude Celebi who took 27th with a time of 18:02. His brother Tate, who lost a shoe with 1/2 mile still to go, amazingly finished just 6 seconds behind for 30th place. Augi Booth, who had been suffering from shin splints all week, turned in his best team performance as our third runner. Augi earned 48th with a time of 18:34. Right on Augi's heels were the Griswold brothers. They each crossed the line with a time of 18:38. I was at the line and thought it was dead heat, but the electronic scoring chips gave the nod to Ali for 52nd place, leaving Huck in 53rd place, to finish off our scoring. Rory McNamara, who had missed the previous 2 practices and was still well below 100%, valiantly ran a 19:09 to take 64th. Trevor Stellmach, subbing in the for sick Malin Adams, ran a heroic 19:55 on the deceptively slow St. Paul's course. With 8th place, the team continued to stay ahead of league rivals Hotchkiss and Choate for the third time this season. On the JV side, we had been massively depleted. I had entered the race limit of 12 runners several weeks ago, but only a mere 5 were healthy enough to compete. Amazingly, on this winding and woody trail, each of the 5 set Personal Records. Leading the way was Eli Arroyo, whose time of 21:22 earned 63rd place. Tonchok Dhanasarnsilp finished in 22:38 for 74th. Just two spots back in 76th came Michael Ren (23:44). Steven Zhang was just three spots behind Michael to take 79th place in 24:30, and the next one across the line was Gavin Poon in 26:59. Again, each of these boys set PRs on this challenging course to finish the season on the highest of notes.