Class M/S cross-country state meet preview

Both Berlin cross-country teams will look to run for an invitation to Meet of Champions to take place the following week when they hit the Derryfield Park course in Manchester tomorrow morning. They will need a top five finish to do so.

“The kids have been running hard this week to prepare,” said Berlin cross-country coach Paul Letarte.

In their first year competing in the Class M/S state meet, the Berlin boys and girls cross-country teams should continue their recent history of strong performances at the state meet.

•Girls’ Race 10 a.m.

There is a very good chance that the Berlin girls team could leave Manchester with a state championship on Saturday, with the Mountaineers having two options.

The first option lies in the team’s overall performance. The girls are probably the third ranked team going into the class meet, but with the gap closing between their second and fifth runners every meet, things look promising for the lady Mountaineers.

Their second option lies in taking home an individual state championship, in which Andrea Newton has an exceptional chance at accomplishing. Newton has only lost to a single Class M opponent all fall, Abbey Gosling of Inter-Lakes, who Newton later went on to defeat twice. With Bow, Inter-Lakes, and Belmont present (predicted top five teams with Berlin) in a meet at Belmont, Newton went on to defeat all the top ranked Class M runners in taking first place with a 21:43 finish. Ten days later, Newton took down Gosling again at Plymouth.

“She has to go out there and establish herself as the girl to beat early,” said Letarte of Newton’s key to winning this weekend. “There are just two girls, one from Conant and one from Pelham, that Andrea hasn’t run against this fall.”

Newton has been running strong all fall, topping her old school record at the Derryfield course on September 28, with a 20:27. She then recently set a new course record at Littleton in an impressive 19:07 finish.

Newton, Lindsey Rothe, Christina Cole, Melanie Payeur, and Elizabeth Jones should be the Mounties’ top five finishers tomorrow most likely in that same order. This season, those five have set that trend from the first race and it has continued. Running for the Mounties looking to be that important sixth runner in case of any Mountie mishaps, will be Danielle Bizier and Karen Chaisson.

Berlin, Inter-Lakes, Belmont, Bow, and Pelham will most likely be the class’ top five teams, with the Mounties having a legitimate chance of finishing in first with a great race or as low as fifth with an off day.

“The girls should be somewhere in the top three,” said Letarte.

The girls (274) fell to slightly to Bow (259) at Manchester on September 28, and also went down to Inter-Lakes, Belmont, and Bow at a Belmont meet in which the Mounties were unprepared for. Berlin did top Inter-Lakes at the Lakers home meet earlier in the season.

The key for the five girls, especially Cole, Payeur, and Jones, will be to close as much gap as they can between themselves, and Newton and Rothe, who should both finish in the top ten. At the Manchester Invitational (same course as Class M/S meet is run on) on September 28, there was a 4:52 gap between Newton and Jones. Three weeks later at Plymouth, at what Letarte called a similar course, the gap shrunk by 11 seconds. The Mounties are hoping that trend will continue as they look to go to the Meet of Champions for the first time in the program’s history.

A top five finish will send the girls to the Meet of Champions to be held the following Saturday at the Derryfield Park Course.

•Boys’ race 10:40 a.m.

Without a single senior on their squad, the Berlin High School boys cross-country team will look to lay a solid foundation in their first ever Class M/S race tomorrow morning.

“That’s a very talented team,” said Letarte of his boys. “They are very young too.”

There is little chance that the Mounties will be able to catch Sant Bani, a very small school who has an excellent core of five runners, but the goal set by the Berlin coach is to return to the Meet of Champions, a place the Berlin boys have been absent from for the past two years.

Running for the boys tomorrow will be Coree Kinerson, Jeff Goupil, Paul St. Amant, Calvin Vaillancourt, and the two Warren brothers, Brian and Shane.

The huge advantage the boys should have tomorrow in their run for a top five spot is the tiny gap between their top finisher and their fifth man. The last time they ran at Manchester, only 46 seconds separated the Mounties top five runners. That small gap of time is reminiscent of the fall of 1998, when the boys cross-country team was nicknamed the “Berlin Wall”. That team was also second at the Class I state meet.

Two weeks later at Plymouth, the gap between the Berlin five did widen a bit, but that was due to an exceptional race from Coree Kinerson, which would only help the Mounties tomorrow as he will look to finish in the top ten. The gap of 1:44 is still relatively small, but that gap will be looked to be closed more tomorrow if the boys want a third place finish.

Almost a certainty is the mini wall that Goupil, St. Amant, and Theriault will create. The three have been interchangeable this year, with only 34 seconds separating them at Plymouth and a mere 21 seconds between the three at Manchester.

The Berlin squad will be in a battle for the second through seventh spot with Bow, Belmont, Newfound, Derryfield, and Pelham expected to give the boys a big challenge in trying to finish in the top five.

The Mounties have beaten and lost to Belmont, while falling to the other teams at least once. In their losses with Pelham and Newfound, the Mounties were just two points behind Newfound at Plymouth and were tied with Pelham at Manchester, but lost due to a slower average time by three seconds.

Needless to say, it is going to be a real battle for those top five spots to see who will run the following Saturday at the same location for the Meet of Champions.

As always, check Monday’s edition of the Berlin Daily Sun for meet results of both the boys and girls.