Wayland athletes visited the Wrentham Developmental Center course for the third and final time this season with the stakes at their highest for the MIAA Division 2B Championship. This is the first of two rounds in the state tournament; unlike with other sports there are no power rankings and brackets. Every school with a team can enter up to seven runners with the top five comprising a scoring team. Qualifying for next week's Meet of Champions is another matter entirely. Only the top teams and the fastest individual finishers who aren't on those top teams make it to the final stage.
The over 200 schools competing in the state are broken down into three divisions, and each division subdivided into three "waves" based solely on school size. Each of the waves has between twenty and thirty teams. Division 2 (waves 2A-2B-2C) are the "medium sized" schools (most of the rest of the DCL schools are in with the large schools of Division 1). Wayland competes in 2B which sits squarely in the middle of the size breakdown, with 2A schools being a little larger and 2C schools a little smaller. 2B also includes DCL opponent Bedford, which has almost exactly the same student population as WHS.
The top seven teams in each wave and top ten individuals not on those top seven teams qualify to next weekend's second and final round, where all the qualifiers from 2A, 2B, and 2C face each other in the Division 2 Meet of Champions. There are also two wildcard teams qualifying from division 2. These are the two teams from 2A, 2B and 2C that didn't finish among the top seven which have the fastest cumulative times for their top five finishers.
Under sunny skies and with a persistent wind blowing from the northwest, the boys raced first. The course was running quite fast with the rain from earlier in the week having long since been absorbed into the ground. The early pace was quite fast overall. Luke Chisum and Will Jackson ran together hanging back somewhat early on and then making their move together in the second half of the race. They were followed by senior captain Daniel Narvaez who hit an even pace, much like Kyle Reece did behind him. Rounding out the scoring five was Matthew Tan, continuing his season long progress. The Wayland team was rounded out by Adrian Narvaez and Jayden Newland in their first high school cross country race at this level. With a timing mat at the finish line that the runners also pass over at the three kilometer mark, it's possible to see how runners fared relative to the rest of the field over the race's final stages. No one from Wayland dropped more than a couple of spots and the majority moved up through the field, led by Chisum who passed twelve people over the final two kilometers of the course.
When the results were tabulated the drama ratcheted up significantly. Wayland had been in 10th place as a team at the 3k mark, but moved up to 9th in the final tally a scant three points behind Newburyport. The difference between 9th and 10th place team is quite meaningful, as finishing 9th instead of 10th opens up the possibility of qualifying as one of two wildcard teams while 10th place means no chance. With the realignment of schools coming into this year's MIAA tournament, five of the top eight teams from last year's 2A race moved into 2B. In other words, the boys Division 2B race became a lot stronger, deeper and more competitive. Unsurprisingly then, the two wildcard teams in Division 2 that finished outside of the automatically qualifying top seven both came from 2B--Newburyport and Wayland. In the end, Wayland's 1-5 cumulative time was 42 seconds faster than Tantasqua, the 8th place team in 2A, and about 2 1/2 minutes faster than Archbishop Williams, the 8th place team in 2C. For the second year in a row, the Wayland boys have qualified for the final stage of the tournament.
The girls raced next, having finished 13th a year ago. With two of the top five runners from last year's team having graduated and with strong teams moving down from 2A after realignment, Wayland's prospects were uncertain at best. Leading the way for WHS as she has all season was junior captain Arya Samaratunga, who patiently worked her way up after the first few hectic minutes and established a spot among the top 20. With the majority of the athletes ahead of her being from teams that were obviously going to qualify, her status as an individual wildcard qualifier for the second year in a row was secure. Behind her 10th grader Sofia Ciciarelli ran a well-paced effort and 9th grader Ainsley Jay extended herself early on, and was able to hold it together sufficiently to achieve a new level of performance when the race was done. The top five was rounded out by junior Naomi Rice and senior AJ Bell who raced together and executed a well-paced effort. Rounding out the Wayland team was senior Michelle Yee in her final high school race. It's worth noting that while four of the six Wayland runners have run the shorter 3k course at Wrentham, only Samaratunga had raced the 5k layout prior to today. Despite this lack of familiarity with the course, the girls team was able to finish 13th again, matching last year's result.
all time performance list for theWrentham Developmental Center course
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