The Northampton girls cross country team had a weekend worth remembering at the 2023 Ted Dutkiewicz Invitational on Saturday. 

Maeve O’Neil won the invite for the Blue Devils, crossing the finish line first in 19 minutes, 28.30 seconds. Her teammate Tess Geis-Benton also placed in the top five, finishing fifth in 20:35.54, and the two helped propel Northampton to a first place team finish with 54 points. 

Also scoring for the Blue Devils was Mairead O’Neil (20:51.19) in seventh, Charlotte Shimpach (21:51.28) in 20th and Summer Sorensen (22:33.37) in 32nd. 

Overall, it was a good day for Gazette teams on the girls side – Hampshire Regional placed second overall as a team with 72 points, just three points ahead of third-place Nathan Hale-Ray High School, and Frontier finished fourth overall with 85 points. 

Also placing in the top five was Frontier senior Leah Gump, who crossed the line in 20:34.00 for fourth place. Teammate Sylvie DiBartolomeo was 14 seconds behind Gump in sixth place ( 20:48.46). 

Hampshire fell just shy of having three runners finish in the top 10 – Sicily Chase placed eighth (21:05.38) and Keegan Butler finished 10th (21:07.96), while teammate Amelia Perry finished 11th (21:15.93)

Hampshire also placed second as a team on the boys side, racking up 96 points; their top five runners all crossed the line with 47 seconds, the closest spread of any other boys team competing. 

The top individual competitor from the Gazette coverage area was Northampton’s Teddy King-Pollet, who finished second overall with a time of 15:54.94, one of just three athletes to break the 16-minute mark. One other runner who finished under the 16 minute mark was Frontier’s Evan Hedlund, who took third in 15:58.11.

Northampton finished fourth overall as a team with 107 points, and Frontier took seventh with 160 points. 

Oscar Schiff helped Hampshire to its second place finish with a 17:06.69 time, good for 13th place. Nick Brisson finished two spots behind him (17:21.66) and Tim Cahill took 19th for the Raiders (17:25.29). 

Frontier’s Luke Howard cracked the top 10 with a (16:28.95) for sixth place. 

Granby’s Nathan Hutchison placed 18th with a time of 17:24.68. 

Hannah Bevis can be reached at hbevis@gazettenet.com. Follow her on Twitter @Hannah_Bevis1.]]>