On Saturday, November 9, 2024, in Northfield the RMHS Boys Cross Country team won gold in the MIAA D1C championship for the first time in 50 years.
The cross country team’s championship is the most the school’s most recent state title, joining other recent state title trophies from Field Hockey (Fall ’23) and Boys Lacrosse (Spring ’23). The last time that the cross country team accomplished this was 50 years ago to the date, adding some more prestige to this accolade. Running the Northfield course that day were seniors Chris Barbato and Rory O’Neill; juniors Tim Connolly, Cam Gigler, and Owen Sinclair; and sophomores Finn Houlihan and Andrew Princic.
The focal point of the run was the rough condition that the runners had to go through. To wrap up the season, the final run proved to be a challenge, as the terrain may not have been as ideal as the runners would have liked. Coach Connelly believes that the team did an excellent job at persevering through this challenge. “They were faced with obstacles and challenges. Difficult course, very hilly, huge hills in the first mile. Very difficult to know how your body is going to react. And then you had great competition.” With all of that stacked against the Rockets, the challenges were well worth it after the fact, after holding the state championship trophy.
The victory was nothing short of special. Reading ended up winning by a whopping 36 points. That means if the 5th man on for Reading finished 35 spots lower than what he ended up getting, then Reading would have still won. This dominance shows the run that Reading went on during the postseason, leaving their 4-2 regular season record behind them. They ended the race with 70 points, the lowest out of the 22 teams from across the state that made up this year’s D1C field.
Captains Jack Filipski, who was out due to injury, and Rory O’Neill shared their thoughts on how it felt to win the champioship. “It feels great, the guys absolutely dominated the field,” said Filipski, highlighting the surrealness of the moment. O’Neill adds on to what Filipski was saying. “I was really proud of the team, we really showed up and gave it our all.” All members of the team were really proud of their teammates and gave each other all the credit when talking about why they won.
The team had a lot of starpower that helped contribute to the championship, but Filipski believed that Barbato was key to winning. “Come playoff time it was Chris Barbato. He was getting the top spots for the Reading guys.” Barbato finished second in the Division 1C race, beating all but one runners across the MIAA division with a time of 16:24.54.
Coincidentally, on the same exact date 50 years ago, the Reading High cross country team won the championship as well–competing in what was then called Division 2–which marked the last time since they won. A coincidental yet mind blowing statistic that coach Connelly commented on. “Maybe it was meant to be.” And maybe it was as Reading continues to pile on trophy after trophy, with cross country being added to that list.
