Mystic  Valley Cross Country Splits with Shawsheen

 The Mystic Valley Boys and Girls Cross Country teams raced Monday afternoon against Shawsheen Technical High School. The results were split, with the Boys team losing by a score of 19-39, and the Girls team winning by a score of 24-31.

The Shawsheen Boys took 1^st and 2^nd place decisively, with a tight race for the 3^rd and 4^th positions. Shawsheen narrowly edged out  sophomore Patrick McPherson (4^th place overall, 20:26), while Senior Pat Moran closely followed (5^th place overall, 21:11).

The Mystic Valley Girls team was without last meet’s top runner for the day, but still managed to secure a strong victory by finishing 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th, and 5^th. The Lady Eagles were led by Sophomore Vanessa LoChirco (26:58), followed by Elise Sheehan (27:38), and Ava Asai (28:24).

After the race, coach Jon Bush said: “we raced a quality opponent and I was happy with the results, especially being without one of the top girls runners. I’m happy for both teams to recognize that we can still win as a whole even if we don’t have the fastest runner in the race. Special acknowledgement should go to Kayla Mei, who finished 5^th overall for the girls’ race but only did so because of an inspired sprint to the finish to surpass a Shawsheen runner in the final few seconds. This sort of dedication and effort translates into victories for our team. “