Wakefield's Greatorex Is On A Great Run

Not to get you mad at him, but Matt Greatorex was always "that" kid. You trained for the race around Lake Quannapowitt, thought you were in great shape, only to have some kid sprint by you like you were standing still. Chances are, it was Greatorex.

"Honestly, too many times to count," said the Wakefield High senior when asked how many times he's run around the lake. "I remember when I was a kid my parents would take me to the lake and I'd run 5ks. There would be little races like the Harrington's Road Race in October and I would have just ran around the lake. That's when I really started to know that I maybe wanted to be a runner. I was in the seventh and eighth grade and I was running 20 1/2 minutes or 21 minutes for 5k and I was already like, alright."

Alright? Make that scary fast.

Greatorex is one of the top runners in the state and after a junior year that ended with All-Scholastic honors from the Boston papers, he's well on his way to an even better season. And he has company. The Warriors are undefeated this fall and even though they've moved up to Division 3, the team still hopes to challenge for state honors.

The success comes from the usual suspects like depth, commitment, and talent. But it also comes from six-day-a-week summer workouts that started Monday morning at 8. Yes, these Wakefield teens spent summer on the run.

"We've been successful mainly because of their summer training," said Perry Pappas, in his sixth year as head cross-country coach. "We've been lucky enough to have leaders on the team because I can't train them over the summer. They organize a summer practice six days a week at 8 in the morning. They get up, they come out and they train, and you'll see 15-20 of them every day."

For much of the summer, Greatorex would finish his morning workout and head to Cambridge where he worked from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at a sub shop. Was there more work on Sunday?

"No, on Sundays we got to sleep in," said Greatorex, who turns 18 Saturday and gave a verbal commitment this week to attend and run at UMass-Lowell.

The formula has worked and the goals are still there, despite the challenge of a higher division.

"We knew that we were moving up a division and that it would be much harder to do what we did last year," said Greatorex. "But our goals are still to win Division 3 and then place as high as we can at All-States and hopefully maybe even win or get second-place. That would be a really high goal for us as a team. Individually, obviously I want to try and win but there's some really good competition like [Arlington's] Ryan Oosting so it will be very hard to win but I'd like a top 5 finish."

This fall, in his first state-wide meet in Wrentham, Greatorex was 12th at the Frank Kelley Invitational in 16:28.87, a finish he wasn't happy with.

"I was a little upset with myself about how I ran. I felt I could have been up in second, third or fourth place because I've run sub 16 before, even if it was on a different course. At the end of the day I'm glad the team got the win. "

He improved on that last weekend with a second-place finish at the Bay State Invitational on the same course in 16:03.84. He'll need to keep improving if he's to surpass his 2016 success.

Last November he was the Division 4 EMass cross-country champion. The next week he finished 12th in Gardner at the Division 2 All-State championships. In track, he has the school's indoor and outdoor mile records and also is part of the indoor and outdoor 4 x 800 as well as the 4 x 400 indoor record. Greatorex and the 4 x 800 team ran at Nationals indoor and outdoor. They won the 4 x 800 indoor Division 4 title and the outdoor 4 x 800 Division 3 EMass title. Greatorex was second in the Division 4 indoor mile and was the Division 3 EMass outdoor champion in the mile.

"He's a patient, composed runner, especially in something like the mile," said Pappas, who teaches at the Galvin Middle School and ran cross-country at Fitchburg High School. "He knows where he needs to be in a race, when he needs to make the move. He's smart, composed, and he doesn't get rattled very easy. Cross-country, he has that similar attitude, where he kind of sits back and doesn't need to get riled up in the first mile."

But it's important to note, this isn't a story about just one runner.

As a team, Wakefield is 4-0 this fall led by captains Tommy Lucey, Ryan Smith, Riley Brackett and Greatorex. The Warriors won last weekend's Bay State Invitational, placing six runners in the top 30 -- Greatorex, Rohan Singhvi (5th), Lucey (6th), Matt Roberto (15th), Casey Brackett (26th), and Riley Brackett (30th). At the Frank Kelley Invitational, despite Greatorex's disappointment in his finish, the Warriors still won the team title led by Singhvi (16th), Lucey (19th), Roberto (38th) and Casey Brackett (40th). In 2016 the Warriors won the Middlesex Freedom title and in November won the EMass Division 4 title. The next weekend in Gardner, Wakefield was runner-up at the Division 2 All-State championships.

And it's not a story about just one gender.

Led by captains Gillian Russell and Yvonne Lucas, the Wakefield girls' team is also the defending Middlesex Freedom champion and the Warriors have won six straight league titles under coach Karen Barrett. This fall their record is 3-2 overall and 3-1 in the Middlesex Freedom. The girls finished 9th at the Frank Kelley Invitational led by Olivia Lucey's 27th-place finish.

For Greatorex, "team" isn't a corny cliché.

"If you just succeed individually it's good for you but having a team succeed it's just like a bond basically. It's created and never broken. Winning as team is better than winning any individual title you can win. Winning individually last year was good but realizing that we won as a team I felt was a much better accomplishment and being able to get that trophy with my six teammates and the rest of my team."

And the girls?

"I wasn't there when they started the streak but seeing them continue with six in a row and going for seven, they deserve everything they get this year. They work just as hard as us and deserve every amount of recognition that we get."

His mom Michelle (Wakefield class of '88) and his dad Jim should get recognition too. After all, they literally pushed Matt into his running career.

"When I was a baby my parents probably took me when they walked [Quannapowitt]. They walk it all the time still," said Greatorex of his first trips around the 5k lake. "The first time I remember I was 6 or 7 when my parents took me and my sisters, just to walk around it."

When Matt wins a big race next month he'll credit hard work, his team, maybe even his parents. Thanking a lake would sound silly.