Melrose Narrowly Sweeps Past Wilmington Cross Country

Thomas Bradley knew he had a talented core of runners in his coming into the season. There have also been several pleasant surprises as the team has improved throughout the season.

“The boys are doing better than I expected,” said Bradley, the head coach for both the boys and girls teams.

On Tuesday, the boys team fell just shy of accomplishing a milestone when they lost, 29-28 to Melrose. They came up short of their third win of the year, a feat the Wildcats haven’t accomplished in many years according to its coach.

But there’s more season ahead of the team, which Bradley said still needs to add depth to its lineup if it hopes to keep improving.

Against Melrose, Erik Atatalo snagged second place overall with a time of 17:13 on what his coach called a very difficult course. Throughout the year, he’s been a leading Wildcat competitor.

“Erik Alatalo gave up his soccer career and joined us, and based on what he did in track, I felt he could help,” said Bradley. “He has done more than help as he is our top runner.”

Steve Halas was just off the pace of his teammate, finishing in third place in 17:21. Next to cross the finish line was transfer student Dave Sweider in fourth at 17:33. Still, it was Melrose that snuck away with the team victory.

“We lost yesterday with these guys running 2, 3 and 4, which reinforces that we need five to seven boys that work hard and want to compete before we will be a ‘good’ team,” said Bradley.

The also fell on the day, as Melrose earned a 32-25 victory.

Callie O’Connell won the race in a time of 20:52 while Syd Russo snagged fourth place as she completed the course in 21:54.

“Callie has really come on strong in the past three meets,” said Bradley.

Keara MacCorkle got off to a slow start but finished strong in seventh place at 22:41, Nicole Romanzo was eighth in her best race of the season. She ran the course in 22:58.

Both teams are now 2-3 on the year, preparing to face Wakefield next week.

“Melrose is a very good team and their course is difficult,” said Bradley. “Both of our teams had good efforts.”