The boys cross country team from West Hartford’s Hall High School turned in its best performance of the season, and is now ranked third in the state after winning Saturday’s Wickham Invitational.

Hall boys cross country at the Wickham Invitational. Submitted photo

By Ronni Newton

Hall boys cross country coach Jeff Billing could not be prouder of the way the team – at all levels – ran during Saturday’s Wickham Invitational.

“Going into the race we figured to be somewhere from second to sixth place, and the only goal was to run a strong race and be happy with where that put us. Much to our surprise … we won,” Billing said of his varsity runners. It was the first time in school history that Hall won the state’s premier invitational.

The varsity race was incredibly close, with Hall defeating Xavier 89-92, with the runners’ paces in the final mile of the 3.1 mile race pushing the team into the lead.

Sophomore Trey Cormier led the Hall runners, finishing in 9th place in a time of 16:53.

Billing said that the rest of the varsity runners stuck together as a pack for two miles when sophomore Miller Anderson “just absolutely took off,” running close to a 5:11 minute per mile pace and moving ahead 20 spots to 13th place a time of 17:05. The rest of the team also ran negative splits, passing other runners and pushing across the finish line in a race where fractions of seconds made the difference, Billing said.

The rest of the varsity team was: sophomore Dylan Rendon 19th (17:12), junior Willem Landis 21st (17:14), junior Jake Rocheleau 27th (17:20), sophomore Patrick Keith 31st (17:23), and junior Miles Aronow 42nd (17:34).

Hall was ranked 13th in the pre-season, and after Saturday’s performance the state poll has the Warriors in third place.

Before the varsity race, Hall JV and freshman runners also turned in stellar performances, Billing said.

There were more than 30 schools with runners in the JV race, but ended with five Hall runners in the top six places. The race was won by senior captain John Robinson in a time of 17:53. He was followed by senior Tommy O’Gorman in second place at 18:05, sophomore Mack Reynolds in third place at 18:07), junior Pat Daly in fourth at 18:14, and senior captain Kory Powell with a sixth place finish in 18:34. 

Hall’s team score was 16, and the teams that followed scored 109, 124, 124, and 134.

“In fact, if our next group of five had been allowed to score as a team, they would have scored 92 points and they still would have won,” Billing said. The next group of five included sophomore Austin Blodgett, senior captain Ethan Hixson, senior captain Patrick Skwiot, senior Ryan Rocheleau, and senior Brennan Mitchell.

If the JV runners competed as a team in the varsity race, Billing said they would have been among the top 20 teams.

The top 50 runners earned medals, and Hall runners earned 22 of those, Billing said.

The freshman runners also had a great meet, finishing eighth out of 28 in what Billing said was the best performance of the season in the 2.5 mile competition.

“They beat two teams – Simsbury and East Lyme – who had beaten them earlier in the season. The improvement is so awesome!

Billing noted performances by Jackson Grady who led the Hall freshmen finishing 39th in a time of 16:49, as well as Brian Pervere in 56th in 17:08, Jon Schwartz in 76th in 17:49, and Noel Fagan  in 79th place in 17:59. The fifth freshman was Owen Brudz, who finished 87th in 18:11, but had the fastest last mile of any of his teammates.

“I couldn’t be more excited for the future with every one one of our freshmen runners,” Billing said, and he’s looking forward to seeing what they can accomplish over the next several years.

Billing said that Hall has taken the state by surprise, but believes the third place ranking is very much deserved.

His message to the team: “Let’s keep up the hard work, enjoy the journey, and be proud of whatever destination we get to by the end of this awesome season.”

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