Wellesley High School’s boys’ cross country team continued its undefeated season Saturday at the MIAA Eastern Mass. Division 2 conference championship in Wrentham by outrunning all 21 other teams to take the title for the second year in a row. Not to be overshadowed, the girls finished second in their meet, and both teams have qualified for next weekend’s All-State meet.
For the boys’ team, you might think the win was as easy as 1-2-3, as individual Raider runners finished first (Ben Matejka, at a 5:09 pace over the 5K course), second (Thomas Weiss) and third (Matthew Cervon). But there was nothing easy about it.
Matejka, one of the team’s senior captains, says: “The biggest change [in our team] from recent years is that we had a lot of guys running every morning this summer.” In Saturday’s race, he says: “We trusted our training and worked together the first two miles.”
On the heels of the first three finishers, Sam Gilman and Jamie Mazzola came in 5th and 13th out of more than 150 runners, and Tommy Williams and Jameson O’Neil weren’t far behind.
The back-to-back D2 champs head to All-States next weekend and should be ready to compete. “We’ve been thinking about All-States the whole season and have used it as motivation in our workouts,” Matejka says.
The WHS girls team had a great race too, finishing second only to Woburn. Loren Andrews led the team by finishing 7th in the race at just under a 6:23 pace.
You might not find a sandwich board outside of WHS this week promoting the All-State meet, but if interested in checking out the race on Nov. 19, it will be in Gardner, Mass.
Congratulations boys and girls XC from the Natick XC team!! Well done!!