Boys’ cross country finished their last home meet with a decisive win over Leominster 15-51 on Sept. 24.  In order to secure this, the team incorporated a pack mentality into their running.

“Pack mentality pushes us because we just run together,” senior captain Quinn Potter said. “It’s more about placing in the bigger meets, so pack mentality if everybody finishes together in the bigger meets, then we’ll score well, so that’s what we’re trying to focus on right now at this point in the season.”

This pack mentality clearly helped the the team win as all top five finishers were from Algonquin and came in neck-in-neck to each other.  Senior Nick West won with a time of 17:39, followed by sophomore Aiden Carter-Frem and Potter who both clocked in at 17:45. They were trailed by senior captains Joe Kearney (17:52) and Charlie McLarnon (17:56). 

Throughout the race, all five runners stayed close to one another and only broke apart for these final sprints. 

“The key in cross country is finishing together,” head coach and social studies teacher Nate Uttaro said. “The better we stay together, the harder it is for other teams to score points.Today we really wanted to focus on that and they did a great job of it.”

This stayed true for runners that didn’t score as well.

“I ran with [senior Ben MacNeil], and the whole entire time it felt like we were together as one, as weird as that may sound,” senior Rapahel Pazi said. “We were just running together, and I didn’t feel that I needed to run too fast or too slow I was at the perfect pace.”

While Leominster was not the strongest opponent, the team will use these proven skills of running together to hopefully secure  wins over tougher opponents. 

“We’re really just focused on the next few weeks,” Kearney said. “We got Shrewsbury coming up. Wachusett coming up…A few big meets that we have to really focus on.”

“We’re gonna take the whole entire notion of working together and running together and we’re gonna employ that against better teams and see how it pays off for us,” Potter said. “I think it’ll help. It’s what we’ve done in the past and will continue to do.”