The boys varsity cross country team beat the Weymouth Wildcats 21-41 at Larz Anderson Park on Friday, Sept. 26.
Not only was this the first home meet for the team, but it was also the team’s “Shoulder Check” meet, an initiative centered around mental health awareness that began this year. Before the meet, girls varsity head coach Michael Deyoung gave a short speech.
According to boys head coach Michael Glennon, the Shoulder Check initiative is a crucial one and something that he believes will make people more cognizant of mental health struggles within athletics.
“We should all be checking in with each other and making contact, so if [people] do need help, they feel comfortable asking,” Glennon said. “It’s my belief always that the more we build good people, the better athletes we’ll become.”
Despite not running at full effort, the Warriors got off to an early lead. Due to the length and strain of the season, Glennon gave his top runners a plan for the race, with the goal of using the meet as a training workout instead of an all-out effort.
With a small slip of paper in hand containing the different paces they were supposed to hit, junior Liam Hartman and senior and captain Theodore Butty led the race from start to finish.
According to Hartman, who edged out Butty to finish first in 15:21, the meet was a huge success for the team as a whole.
“I think it went really well, we went in with a plan to run all together,” Hartman said. “It was really strong, a really good pace the whole time.”
Butty echoed Hartman’s positive sentiment, as he considered the Warriors’ performance a big step in the right direction and a good experience for some team members.
“It was for a lot of the guys their first time running the varsity course,” Butty said. “We’re trying to be ambitious, we’re really confident and we’ve got some big meets coming up.”
These big meets include the MSTCA Twilight Invitational, which the Warriors will attend on Saturday, Oct.11. According to Glennon, the team is in one of the most difficult stretches of the season, meaning that they need to stay focused in and outside of practice time.
“This is a hard part of the season because we’re keeping our mileage high and we’re starting to do some faster work,” Glennon said. “So it’s really important to make sure that people are getting recovered, getting sleep, hydrating and eating right.”
As the team gears up for the latter part of the season, Hartman said he remains confident in his team. Over the last three years, the team has won states all three times, and according to Hartman, the goal this year is simple.
“We’ve been training really hard these past few weeks; everyone’s already improved so much,” Hartman said. “I think we could go back and win states four years in a row.”
