Evan Berardino, Wyatt Voegtli & Trey Downing in the lead pack (photos courtesy of Kerstin Berardino)
On Tuesday, the Haddam Killingworth boys and girls cross country teams competed in their only league meet of the season as they traveled to Totoket Park in North Branford to compete in the Shoreline Large School League meet as they raced against Valley Regional, Morgan, North Branford, East Hampton and Cromwell.
The boys team won the large school league meet and went undefeated on the afternoon to have their dual meet record at 5-0 on the season. The H-K boys are now 131-0 in dual meets dating back to 2014 as they defeated Morgan by a score of 15-50, beat Cromwell 15-45, defeated North Branford 15-50, beat Valley 15-47 and defeated East Hampton 20-35. The H-K boys ran as a pack at the front of the race over the challenging 3.1 mile course as they all crossed the line together in the same time of 16:59 to place 1st through 3rd in the race. Finishing as a pack were: Wyatt Voegtli, Evan Berardino and Trey Downing. The next finishers to help lead the team to victory were senior Paul Birkmeyer 6th (17:46) and freshman RJ Ortega 8th (18:10).
Annie Webster, Mattie Gersz, Alyssa Behnke, Emi Schweitzer & Charlotte Behnke racing as a pack
The Girls team also went up against the same five league teams and also went 5-0 on the afternoon and are now 111-2 in dual meets since 2015. The Cougars defeated Morgan 15-50, beat Cromwell 19-40, defeated Valley 15-50, beat East Hampton 15-50 and beat North Branford 15-50. Also running as a pack for most of the race over the hilly 5,000 meter course, the top 3 girls finished all together in the same time of 22:36 in places 3rd-5th were Charlotte Behnke, Emi Schweitzer and Alyssa Behnke. Following closely behind was sophomore Annie Webster 8th (22:40) and freshman Mattie Gersz who led the pack for most of the race placed 9th in a time of 23:01.
The cross country team will next be in action on Saturday October 3rd as they travel to Wrentham, MA to compete in the Bay State Invitational.
