Head coach Jim Doyle didn’t know what to expect from his Bishop Hendricken squad at Saturday’s Great American X-C Festival. When the Hawks arrived in North Carolina two days prior, just four of his seven varsity runners were healthy with junior Jacob Silva, junior Freddy Russell and senior Jack Moretta all coming down with sicknesses before the prestigious meet.
On the heels of their big win at the Wickham Park Invitational on Sept. 28, Silva was unable to compete at the NC meet. Moretta and Russell did make it to the starting line, but were far from 100 percent for the mid-morning race.
“On Thursday, we had three guys in bed. Friday, too,” Doyle said. “(Moretta and Russell) were still fairly sick (on race day) and Jacob was diagnosed with walking pneumonia.”
While they weren’t able to achieve the original goals that were set prior to the meet, the short-handed Hawks still managed a top-10 finish against some of the east coast and nation’s best in the featured Race Of Champions. Hendricken placed ninth against the 40 schools with 387 points.
With a wide-open start on a long field that includes a downhill portion that stretches for about 600 meters, the start of Great American is often fast. The leaders at Saturday’s race, held under humid conditions with the temperature in the 80s, hit their opening mile at 4:25.
That’s where the Hawks fell behind and couldn’t quite make it up with the quality of competition that they were facing on the grounds of the WakeMed Soccer Complex.
“Overall,” Doyle said, “we were very fortunate to finish ninth.”
Just as he’s done all season long, sophomore Colby Flynn was the Hawks’ No. 1 runner. Flynn averaged a crisp five-minute pace on the five-kilometer course, placing 38th out of nearly 400 runners that answered the gun with a time of 15:35.7. The Hawk standout earned the distinction as the top RI finisher. He was just 20 meters ahead of Narragansett’ Cole Francis, who was 44th in 15:38.6 The two harriers were both in the low 4:40 range for the first mile and between 9:54-9:56 at 3,200m.
“He’s been very consistent,” said Doyle, about Flynn. “He listens and sticks with his race plan. I told him he had to go out fast the first mile. With a lot of good runners, I told him he could be in 30-40th place.”
The Hawks averaged a solid 16:14 by its varsity crew with senior BJ Kerachsky (94th,16:11.6), senior Emmitt Rattey (98th, 16:13.1), sophomore Michael Moreira (132nd, 16:30.0), and junior Brayden Seraichyx (157th, 16:40.7) compiling the score. Freshmen Oliver Redmond (202nd, 16:57.3) and Shepard Butler (204th, 16:57.3), who were last-minute additions to the the lineup, both came through with respectable sub 17-minute efforts. Redmond was 202nd overall in 16:57.3, while Butler was 204th in 16:57.6. Moretta (278th, 17:29.8) and Russell (284th, 17:34.2) also competed and gutted their way to the finish line.
In the girls’ race, the state’s top runner so far this season, Pilgrim’s Keaney Bayha, was 21st overall with a time of 18:03.7. Bayha gradually picked off runners throughout the race. She was 34th at the 2K mark (7:03.5) and 24th when she reached the 3,200m checkpoint.
Bayha’s younger brother, Kingston, was second in the eighth-grade competition, held on Friday. He clocked 11:04.1 for the two-mile course.
Minus Redmond and Butler, Hendricken was second overall in the JV race. Evan Presbrey was the top finisher, placing fourth overall in 16:51.3.
