WHS cross country teams shine in home meet

By Matt Pascarella

In their first and only home meet of the season, Windham High School’s Cross Country teams faced Deering, Biddeford and Noble on Saturday, Sept. 5.

Windham senior Mason Bragdon maintains his focus as he
concentrates on the course during a prep cross country
meet at Windham on Saturday, Sept. 5.
PHOTO BY MATT PASCARELLA

On this 5K course, the Windham boys finished second with a score of 49 and the Windham girls finished third with a score of 47.

“This was our first regular distance meet of the year, so I wanted to make sure they went ahead and got a time that we can start working off of,” said WHS cross country coach Paula Pock. “Today was to finish, see where we are at and continue to build from there. A lot of the athletes partnered up with their teammates, so they worked together, they all were ... pretty consistent on their pacing.”

BOYS

Freshman Miles Moreau finished first overall and first for Windham with a time of 18:43.30 minutes.

“My goals are to see what I can do and to see what my team can do this year,” said Moreau, who achieved a personal record this race. “My goal (for this race) was to go under 20 minutes. The first mile was a good one; I need to work on going faster up my hills. I learned I can go faster than I thought.”

Senior Mason Bragdon finished fourth overall and second for Windham in a time of 20:13.46.

Third for Windham and 13th overall was freshman Franklin Murray with a time of 22:59.76.

Not far behind Murray was freshman Clement Trombley who finished fourth for Windham and 15th overall posting a time of 23:18.89.

GIRLS

“We’ve done a lot of miles in practice, and I really want to put those to use today,” said Windham junior Stephanie Roghelia who finished fourth overall and first for Windham with a 24:12.94 time while also achieving a personal record. “My hills (went well); keeping my pace throughout the whole race (needs work) sometimes I go out a little fast and taper off, but I really want to work on negative slowing my race.”

Senior Alanna Lewis finished second for Windham and 10th overall with a time of 27:38.01.

Grace Rinaldi, a freshman, finished third for Windham and 12th overall with a 28:32.00 time.

Junior Virginia Pampaloni finished fourth for Windham and was 14th overall with time of 30:04.16.

“We had a lot of kids run their personal records, definitely for the season, but also for those who ran it last year, they got personal record from last year,” said Pock. “We’re going to continue working on our hill strength as well as endurance. I was extremely pleased; they showed a lot of grit, worked really hard, and they all stuck with it. Not overthinking is important.” <