Published October 15, 2020
WAKEFIELD — The WMHS boys’ cross country season started their 2020 campaign with a resounding 15-50 victory over Watertown at Wakefield Memorial High School on Saturday.
The Warriors once again start their season with big expectations. Although there won’t be a state tournament this year, Wakefield is focused on competing for a league championship as they will play a five-meet schedule, racing every team in the Freedom Division once.
Wakefield and Watertown familiarized themselves with racing in 2020 as new rules include staggered starts and social distancing. A maximum of 14 total runners can go out per wave with groups staggered every three minutes.
The Warriors had 17 runners compete in the varsity race and 14 in the second race as they have great numbers this season.
Wakefield’s top eight beat every runner for the shorthanded Raiders.
Wakefield was led by sophomore Ben Stratton who finished with a time of 16:50. Senior captain Jonathan D’Ambrosio was next at 16:58.
Juniors Thomas Dowd (17:10) and Ajay Haridasse (17:22) were 3rd and 4th while sophomore Leith Jones (17:27) and seniors Colin Rudy (17:35) and Zach Jellison (18:40) rounded out the scoring in the top seven. Sophomore Will Riley (19:05) also finished ahead of every Raider.
The rest of the first race proved Wakefield’s depth this season. Freshman Mike Arria (18:49), senior David Schurter (18:54), senior Aaron Canestaro (19:28), junior James Christie (19:40), senior captain Andrew Roos (19:57), senior captain Jack Tomsyck (20:03), sophomore Matt McCoy (20:09), junior Brett McLellan (20:12) and sophomore Sam Bangston (20:15) all had a good start to this most unique season.
In the second race, Wakefield got some more promising first races especially from a trio of freshmen who finished in the top three: Joe Patt (20:11), Ollie Polster (20:24) and Robert Brown (20:38).
They were followed by sophomores David LoCoco (20:59) and Vinny Kaddaras (22:05), senior Cory Sample (22:11), sophomores Brian Casey (23:07) and Marcus Conte (23:10), freshmen Brendan Campea (23:46), Kam D’Ambrosio (24:16) and William Mezikofsky (24:22) along with junior Declan Carney (24:48). Freshmen Cooper Davis and Theo Lyle also competed in their first high school race.
The Warriors will travel to Wilmington on Friday at 4:30 p.m. The Wildcats dropped their season opener to a strong Burlington team 19-42.
A full preview of the boys’ cross country team will appear in Friday’s annual fall sports supplement along with Wakefield High’s five other fall sports teams.
