On the boys side of things, Luke Laverdiere from Yarmouth comes into this race with the mindset of winning, and after last week's performance at St. Joes, where he ran with one shoe and still won with a 16:35 shows how mentally strong he is. Laverdiere has won every WMC race he competed in this season. Last year at regionals he finished 4th with a 17:26. He has been under 16:40 in every race this year, look for him to be the front runner. Running on his home course look for Ryan Morrison of Greely to use that to his advantage, Morrison was 14 seconds behind Laverdiere last week and will try to close in on him more as goes in and out of the woods of Twin Brook. Morrison put some serious work in this summer and it's definitely showing. Earlier this year he ran a 17:18 on his home course and ran by himself for most of the way. He'll easily go under that this weekend and could possibly give Laverdiere a run for his money. Like it's been said in the past if you go out too hard at Twin Brook,
you're gonna have a bad time; and who know's Twin Brook better than Morrison. Coming down from the KVAC is senior Chistopher Walfield of Morse. He went up against Laverdiere earlier this year at the Lalilberte Invitational and ran with him all the way til the last 800m. He'll look to go all the way with him this Saturday. He was the 2nd fastest Class B runner at the KVAC's and the 7th fastest overall last weekend. He started off the year running in the 16:30's but he slowed down a bit this past month going 17:49 in his conference championship. Look for him to step up his game this week and get back to where he was at the beginning of the year. The hot duo from Freeport, Chandler Vincent and Henry Jaques will look to continue their hot streak as they'll try to go back to back like they have been doing all season. The two finished 3rd and 4th at the WMC championship going 16:55 and 17 flat. Both have just come off of recent injuries and look to help lead their team to another victory. Vincent has been consistently in the low 16:40's to 16:30's while Jaques started off the season in the low 17's and has gotten as far down as 16:28 for a PR. He's been closing the gap on his teammate with each race and will try to do it again this weekend. Coming out of Fryeburg is Patrick Carty. He was 3rd last year on this course with a 17:12 making him the fastest returner. Carty has been running in the low 17's and high 16's with a seasonal best of 16:54 at NYA. One of Carty's strengths is hills and has performed well at Twin Brook in the past years. Watch as he'll try to lead the chase pack.
Last week we saw Freeport, York, and Greely battle it out at St. Joes. In the Division 1 results, Freeport won followed by York then Greely with a score of 57-58-59. However in the combined results York & Freeport tied with 77 each, with the tie breaker going to the Wildcats with the better 6th runner. This week won't be the same as last week. Freeport has battled injuries all year and last week was their first win since opening week. Talking to some of their varsity runners after last week's win, they said they were at about 85% ready. They look to be closer to 1005 this week. Greely has the upper hand as they are running on their home course. They look to get back at York from last year and snag the win. If Greely's #4 and #5 runners can go with Freeport's #4 and #5, they can easily get the victory, that's what held them back last week. What separates Freeport from York is their front runners. They've got York beat 1-3 giving them that slight advantage and upper hand. One thing that York has that Greely and Freeport doesn't have, a tight pack time. York is capable of keeping their 1-5 within a minute, and that was just enough to beat Greely last week. When one Wildcat crosses the line, look for their other 4 not far behind.
Top 10 Individuals (Click link for complete list)
Top 3 Teams (Click for complete list)
