The Marianapolis Girls and Boys Varsity Cross Country teams put together one of the best cross country seasons in school history. The teams welcomed talented new runners including Enya Li, Jaela Hanley, Luke Hutchinson, Abi Bilodeau, and Molly Hachigan while seeing great performances from Charles O'Brien, Collin O'Brien, Colin Healey, Keegan Porter, Tucker Peckham, Caleb Gingras, and Ellie Smith. The team was able to push each other past their old limits while creating new friendships and strengthening old ones. 

The season included some tremendous victories including the girls at parent family weekend, the boys at the Jacober Invitational, and most importantly, the boys varsity team won the New England championship, placing 1st of 22 teams. This is the first time in school history that the boys have won the New Englands. The girls also finished their season strong with an 8th place finish at New Englands after not having a scoring girls team since Coach Meszaro started at Marianapolis. The best individual victory of the season was when Ellie Smith won the All-NEPSTA Invitational, winning in a time of 19:53 and outkicking the second place girl by 1 second. 

The Knights showed tremendous improvements from last season to this season and from the beginning of the season to the end. The boys went from 7th at New Englands to 1st at New Englands. In total, the cross country team had 25 athletes compete in 2 or more races. Of those 25, 24 of those runners saw improvement in their 5k times by up to 4 minutes and 50 seconds. The girls team had 60% of their runners run their fastest times of the season at their last meet, and the boys team had 70% of their runners run their fastest times of the season at their last meet. 

Next year, the boys varsity team will have 6 out of 7 varsity members returning, but the team will miss Charles next year because he has been a tremendous leader since becoming captain last fall. Coach Meszaro believes that the boys have the potential to win back to back New England Championships. On the girls side, a podium finish or better is possible because there are no seniors on the girls side.

Coaches Meszaro and Gohn are incredibly proud of all of the efforts that the cross country teams have put into this season!