Walple’s top runner races for the number two spot

On the Wednesday after Columbus Day, October 10, the Walpole Cross Country team hopped in their buses and drove over to East Middle School in Braintree to race Weymouth. Before leaving from our high school, they knew the importance of this meet as Weymouth would be one of our competitors going into MIAA Eastern Mass. Division II meet in November. The results of the meet in Braintree would predict those of Division II race, and only the top four teams advance. They understood they needed to do well, but when they were on the starting line, Walpole knew they did not have enough to win. Although Walpole swept the trivial Braintree team with a perfect score of 15-50, they suffered a heartbreaking loss against Weymouth, losing 24-32.

 As the gun went off, Walpole was doing quite well; in fact, the Rebels held some of the top spots for the first few hundred meters. The race was neck and neck for the two laps into the 2.5-miles-in-3-laps course; however, when the race got strenuous in the last 800 meters, Walpole could not withstand the Weymouth runners and recoiled. Weymouth collectively passed four Walpole runners and increased the deficit to the rest. Walpole’s only runner who was not beat out in a foot race—at the conclusion of the course by the opposition—was senior Sean Herlihy, who came in second overall. “I think we ran well, but I think our trouble is racing because we can’t really finish that great. On the whole, I mean,” he said when asked about how he thinks the meet went.

 Later that week, on Saturday, October 13, Walpole came back to race at the Barnstable County Fairgrounds in Falmouth for the Twilight Invitational. In vengeance of the prior loss against Weymouth, the Rebels came in sixth place overall, with everyone in the race attaining new personal records. Weymouth, on the other hand, came in twelfth. What this meant for Walpole was Wednesday at Braintree was just an off day, and now Weymouth knows who the real racers are.