Walpole’s Boys Indoor Track Team lost to Wellesley on Thursday, January 18, and their record is now at 1-3. Compared to the last few years, Walpole has been weaker due to the loss of a few top athletes, and the other teams in the Bay State League have been much improved. Even with senior PJ Hayes returning from an injury to compete and many athletes competing better than before , Walpole did not have enough to overcome Wellesley. There was no definitive event that caused Walpole to lose; Wellesley was just an all-around better team.

Walpole faced, for the first time this season, a long distance team that not only matched their prowess but exceeded it. For the first race of the meet, the one mile, Wellesley swept. This doesn’t show a huge fault in Walpole’s team, though, as the opponents had three of the top six milers that meet. Senior Alex Fraser got his personal record down by five seconds to 5:08; sophomore Brendan Wohler, by two to 4:53. The next race, the 1000m, was similar in that Wellesley had three of the top five runners in the league. After the 1000m, the score was 18-0, and Wellesley only needed 30 points from the remaining nine events of the night. Although the opponents had the top racer in the 600m, the rest of the heat was comparatively weak, and junior Jon Kelland took second, scoring Walpole’s first three points. Senior captain Sean Herlihy had a great race in the two mile, bringing his PR down by 15 seconds to 10:11, and came in first. A half of a minute behind him, coming in second, was junior Mikey Van der Linden with a four-second-faster PR of 10:42.