BELCHERTOWN — Coach Bill Wheeler’s Belchertown boys cross country squad literally runs on youth. In his sixth season at the helm, Wheeler relies heavily on underclassmen to lead the team during races.
During a tri-meet last week at home against Sabis and Westfield Technical, Belchertown had eight of the top 10 finishers in 15-50 routs over both schools. None of those eight finishers for the Orioles are seniors, which allowed Wheeler to believe he will have each runner back next season.
“Cautiously optimistic,” Wheeler said on how it makes him feel. “Last year I had three freshmen in the top five and one of them returned.”
The one who returned was sophomore Zach Bail.
Bail missed the first two meets this season with a foot injury and has battled a hamstring ailment since. Bail, who said his injuries are “pretty much all healed,” finished second in 17 minutes, 51 seconds in Tuesday’s tri-meet, which improved the Orioles’ record to 3-3.
Bail, junior Parker Mas (17:44) and junior Matthew Perkins (17:55) all set personal records on the 2.8-mile course at Foley Field last Tuesday.
Mas credited his coach for the team’s success.
“We have plans that involve the whole team, but are individualized to what we need to do to grow and get better as athletes,” Mas said.
The first-place finish for Mas was the first of his career. He was surprised he won.
“I’m kind of shocked honestly,” he said.
Wheeler hopes the team will keep improving.
“Maybe if they cut some time off even further, they can come into next year close to breaking 17:00 on our home course,” he said.
Belchertown has two regular season meets left: Tuesday against Pope Francis and Northampton at Whiting Reservoir in Holyoke, and South Hadley on Oct. 18 at Foley Field.
The Orioles will then run in a pair of postseason meets: the PVIAC championships, Oct. 29 at Stanley Park in Westfield, and the Western Massachusetts championships, Nov. 13 at Stanley Park.
After a ninth-place finish last season at Western Mass., Wheeler hopes the Orioles can finish “close to the top 10, or 10th.”
But Wheeler doesn’t like to focus on the postseason. He coaches to improve each of the runners individually.
“The way I coach is just to get these guys to PR,” Wheeler said. “If they are PRing and actually getting better as runners, (it shouldn’t) be a wasted season if we don’t win championships.”
Belchertown recently changed its training methods to focus on “quality over quantity” and cut back on recovery runs by about 15-30 minutes.
“We do timed runs now, we don’t even do distance,” Wheeler said. “I will tell them to run 60 or 90 minutes and that’s the workout. With workouts and races we do two to three quality workouts a week.”
After a few injuries against Agawam on Sept. 27, Wheeler wondered if he was pushing his runners to hard. But he said everything has stabilized now and he looks forward to the challenge the team faces ahead.
He credited the personalities of the top runners to their continued improvement.
“Everyone in the top group, they are Type A personalities. They have other activities they do outside of cross country,” Wheeler said. “Everything they do, they have the attitude they will go all the way with it. They don’t do anything halfway.”