Boys Team Of The Week: Northwest Boys
This Week's Nominees:
- Bel Air Boys - Winners of the Mustang Invitational on Friday evening tallying 30 points with 5 runners among the top 11 places led by race champion and sophomore Kieran McDermott running a time of 10:10 on the two mile course at C. Milton High School.
- Boonsboro Boys - Seem to be adjusting well to their new classification of 1A as the claimed the small schools division title at the Interstate Classic over another 1A powerhouse in Smithsburg by a decisive margin of 28 points. Boonsboro inserted 4 runners among the top 13 small schools finishers.
- Good Counsel Boys - Went down to Fredericksburg, Virginia and the MD #3 ranked squad put a hurting on the Virginia schools at the Chancellor Invitational placing four runners among the top 9 places and averaging just over 17 minutes on the challenging 5K course at Loriella Park. DC's Gonzaga College ended up being their biggest test with 15 points (42-57 pts) separating the two DC metro private schools. #1 runner Jack Wavering won the race by a time gap of 20 seconds in 16:34.
- Loyola-Blakefield Boys - Successfully repeated as team champions in one of the top invitationals of the weekend in Maryland at the Seahawk Invitational placing their formidable front four among the top 11 places with race champ Frankie Legambi (15:47), Kenny Rowe (3rd, 16:17), Kevin Wegner (10th, 16:43), and Max Barbour (11th, 16:45) to average 16:35 as a team on the South River High School cross country course. A 31 point point buffer between them and the runners-up from Mount. St. Joseph.
- Northwest Boys - No Diego Zarate anymore to lead their team up front, but despite graduating one of the best distance runners from last fall, Northwest boys cruised to a team victory at the Brunswick Invite keeping their top 5 spread under a minute and winning the large schools division by 31 points. Instead of having a clear front runner like Zarate, Northwest used a three headed monster approach with top 10 finishers Chase Osborne (4th, 17:07), Komlan Attiogbe (6th, 17:11), and Elton Quansah (8th, 17:25).
- River Hill Boys - The defending 3A state champs bounced back in a resounding way from a somewhat humbling scrimmage loss to the 3-time 4A state champion Severna Park boys. Facing the #2 preseason ranked in 3A behind them in Mt. Hebron at the Interstate Classic, the River Hill boys won decisively 37 to 60 points thanks to having 4 of the top 8 finishers in the large schools divisions breakdown. Trent Rose was the team's top finisher (3rd, 16:20) followed by Rahul Reddy (5th, 16:47), Jacob Parker (7th, 17:10), and Andrew Meininger (8th, 17:11). All juniors except for the senior Rose.
- Severna Park Boys - Not going to be a down year for the Severna Park boys. Another year of graduation losses for this 2013 and 2014 Nike Cross Nationals qualifying squad and another year of them reloading again with new faces and names stepping up to the fill the holes. They ventured north to Pennsylvania at the Northampton and saw their top 3 runners all run under the old course record including the top two fastest 5K times of the season by Marylanders in Andrew Forsyth (15:28) and Joshua Tucker (15:37). Averaged 16:07 as a squad and tallied a dual meet like score of 27 points in a mid-sized out-of-state invitational.