As September comes to a close, the cross country season reaches a dull period between season openers and championship races. However, that is not to say that OPXC hasn’t been displaying impressive performances so far this year. One more recent spectacle that encompasses this idea was the Bernie MaGee Class Meet, as held this past Saturday, September 23rd. Being a class race, this format of meet throws an interesting spin on the typical Varsity — Junior Varsity — Freshman racing format that many runners have become accustomed to by opting to break up runners by grade, rather than letter status. While it is a more abnormal format of a cross country meet, the Rams driven mentality stayed the same. Backing these driven mentalities were results, as a Ram Runner placed Top 10 in every single class race. For freshman, Aidan Murphy placed 8th in a two mile time of 10:30, a phenomenal time for a 9th grader over the 3.2 kilometer distance. He was followed by fellow freshman & medalist Patrick Roberts. Jumping to the 5 kilometer distance, Connor Bassolino also placed 8th in a time of 17:18, while James Nolan ran a personal best of 18:04, both of these medalist running Top 100 times in the NJ Class of 2026 this year. Although, the real show was in the Junior Class Race, as Declan Kelly would run a 20+ second personal best, crossing the line in 16:41 — the fastest time of the day run by an OP Ram! Tim Callahan ran a solid time in this race as well, but fell short of reaching his personal best of 18:03. In the senior race, Tommy Hunt led the way with a Top 10 finish, but struggled to come anywhere near his personal best, only running a time of 16:50. Though disappointing, Hunt has assured the Omega that he will not allow the same result to occur in future races, and he will return to dominance over the remaining course of his senior year. Senior’s Bobby Bajkowski, Conor Heffernan and Dean Webber all ran their fastest times his season, and will look to surpass their personal best in the near future. Cumulatively, the top 5 had an average of 17:26, thus insinuating that they are making good on their promise to “haunt” the 2017 OPXC team, who has the school record avergae of 17:05…for now. The Rams will now take on the New Balance Sponsored Shore Coaches Invitational at the notorious Holmdel Park next Saturday, September 30th. There, the Rams will look to build on this momentum and maybe even fight for the win at this prestigious invitational.
