In accordance with the Greylock’s tradition of excellence, both the girls’ and boys’ cross country teams delivered stellar performances this season, highlighted by the boys bringing home the Western Mass title for the fifth year in a row, winning the race by a close margin over Lenox. Lenox had previously handed the Mounties their only two losses this year. Senior captain and number one runner Cater Stripp said, “We really came on when it mattered… especially at the end of the season.” Because of the win, the boys will be competing at states this Saturday, and Stripp believes that given the challenges they have met in the regular season and the high powered line-up which includes Sam and Jake Kobrin in addition to Will Nolan, victory seems well within their reach.

As for the girls team, even though they did not qualify for states, the runners have a lot of positives to take from this season. They pulled off an overall record of 14-2 with their only two losses, in a fate similar to that of the boys, coming to Lenox and came in fourth place in Western Mass, only missing qualification by a mere four points (only the top three qualify). Despite the disappointment of barely missing a great opportunity, senior captain Laura Galib was highly optimistic about the team’s status: “Our biggest challenge was always going to be making it to states, but the team has a ton of depth, we all contributed in some way, and our key runners were our entire top ten. Especially this year, we all became incredibly close as a team… closer than any other year I’ve been on this team… And I think that helped us to achieve everything that we did this year.” Junior runner Molly Haskins mentioned, “this year we lose 8 seniors including Laura who was in our top ten and although we will be missing them a ton, we still have the depth to do well next year and will continue to grow. We have rising middle runners and underclassman who show amazing potential. Half of the top ten will be seniors next year so it’s good that we have so many younger girls improving.” It is this kind of depth that will allow the team to come out even stronger next year and perhaps reach states, with many upcoming potential stars including Niku Darafshi, Emma Polumbo, and Grace Smith to carry the team through.

The boys’ team, while they do not have the same depth as the girls’ and are more top heavy still “look really strong for next year,” according to Stripp, with younger runners like Tommy Kirby and Jacob Fink set to replace the current seniors. The senior running prodigy remarked, “We don’t rebuild, we reload.”