Boys, Girls Cross Country Teams Have Different Obstacles

The boys and girls coss country teams will have different challenges this season. The girls won their first match but the boys were edged by Newington.

The boys team lost its number one runner, Shaun Sullivan to graduation while the girls team didn't lose any seniors.

The boys team was 9-6 last seaon and 13th at the MM meet.  The girls team finished 12-3, second at the CCC South Championships, fourth at the Windham Invitational, third at the Wickham Invitational and 10th in Class  MM.

The boys will be led by junior Brendan McLarty, sophomore James Dwyer, senior co-captain Will Cavedon, junior Matt Kall and junior co-captain Ryan Kliszewski.

The girls will be led by senior co-captain Kaylene Sylvain, sophomore Nicole Grieco, junior co-captain Stefanie Parillo, sophomore Brittany Sullivan, and junior Nicole Sylvain.

"The boys will struggle with low numbers so injuries would be a great concern," Berlin boys and girls coach Steve Soucy said. "We only have 13 runners this year.  Our strength will be our pack of solid runners.  We don't have a 16-minute kid but we have 5 to 7 runners that can all go under 19 minutes by the end of the season.

"The girls, on the other hand, have strength is our numbers. We have 10 runners that have all finished in different spots of our top 10 in our first two races. They can all run about the same time and a pack with that speed of that size is tough to beat.

"Our weakness is that we don't have that one dominant runner. We have 10 that are within seconds of each other but don't have that one that can run under 20 minutes yet. In our preseason race and our first regular season meet this year, the opposing team took first spot by basically a minute yet we were still able to remain competitive due to our depth."

Soucy said that on both the boys and girls side, Bristol Central should be the team to beat in the division.