The Marblehead High girls cross-country team participated in the annual Northeastern Conference Championship Meet at Stage Fort Park in Gloucester on Oct. 28, where as a team they finished second overall with 72 points behind dominant Peabody. The Tanners simply ran away from their conference foes to take home the title after accumulating 25 points. Masco ended up third with 85 points.
But once again nobody touches Marblehead sophomore Marri O’Connell (18:25) individually, who breezed to victory to help her teammates come in second.
Caterina Piper (20:20, eighth), Maren Potter (21:03, 14th ), Jesslyn Roemer (21:57, 22nd ), Shannon Hitscherich (23:00, 31st ), Abbie Goodwin (23:27, 32nd ) and Willow Waddington (24:37, 35th ) also took part in the event for the Magicians.
“Marrietta just cruised to a comfortable first-place finish with a time of 18:25 over the 2.97-mile
course,” said coach Will Herlihy. “(O’Connell) beat out the second-place finisher by a minute and a half after coming in second last year as a freshman.
“Marri had only one thing on her mind coming into this race, and that was to win it all,” added Herlihy.
“She got out fast to get separation from the pack, and never looked back. Both Marri and Cat earned All-Conference status after finishing in the top eight, and Maren had her best race of the season to hold off the big Masco pack to help secure the team’s second-place finish.
“As a team with many first-year varsity runners that had a lot of question marks coming into this season after losing 12 seniors last year, a second-place finish in the NEC Meet would have been a dream scenario for this squad,” he added.
The Magicians returned only three varsity runners — Abbie Goodwin, Marri and Cat — this fall, but now they are getting ready for the Division 2A state qualifying meet Saturday, Nov. 11, in Wrentham to continue this dream season.
