Martlet Takes Sixth Place

Perfect November weather combined with a well-groomed, if very challenging, course for a great day of racing at Hebron Academy.  This course is unlike any the team has seen, in that it is a single long loop, which made it all but impossible for coaches to have any contact with the runners between the start and the finish.  The start across the Hebron lower fields was impressive, as 125 runners sprinted across 300 meters of grass before disappearing into the woods to face rolling terrain and the Wall.  At the finish, the winner of the Canterbury Invitational, Chernet Sisay appeared first, but our own Aaron Rubin '15 was in the trailing pack.  Rubin finished only 26 seconds behind the winner (he was well over a minute back at Canterbury) and took the 6th place finish, good enough to earn All-New England honors and a berth at the All-Star race next weekend.  Following Rubin was co-captain Travis Percy '14 (37th), Tommy Griffith '14 (51), Toby Casper '14 (71) and co-captain Will Sprenker '13 (76).  The displacers were right there as well, with Ronald Yeung '13 (80) and Gary Yang '13 (86) both finishing in the top 2/3 of this fast field.  The team is graduating three excellent athletes who have given a combined 11 years to this program and countless miles of training; they will be missed next season.  In the end, the Martlets efforts earned them a ninth place team finish, ahead of Suffield Academy who had bested them at the RMI and much closer to Tabor and Williston.