AMHERST — The boys cross country meet between Amherst Regional and Northampton on Tuesday pitted two undefeated teams against each other for the Valley North title.
The Blue Devils’ Tobias L’Esperance placed first overall in 16 minutes, 56 seconds, but the Hurricanes, led by Willem Goff (second, 17:08), filled out the rest of the top five to earn the victory, 21-34.
With the win, the Hurricanes earned their third straight league title.
Winning the championship at the end of the regular season against another undefeated team gave the meet a postseason feel.
“It’s a sport experience everyone hopes to have at some point,” Amherst coach Chris Gould said. “We have all kinds of respect for Northampton. I felt like we were the underdog coming into his meet, but I have the advantage of watching my runners progress over the course of the last month and a half and they have repeatedly surprised me.”
Griffin Jones has turned into a valuable member of the team throughout the season. Since starting the year as the program’s seventh runner, he has worked his way to being a consistent No. 5 for the Hurricanes (9-0, 5-0 Valley North).
Jones placed fourth overall on the 3.1-mile course in 17:29.
“He has been remarkable,” Gould said. “He did the homework this summer. I saw him out running often. … He has really established himself as the fifth and today he was the third man (for Amherst). That’s not what I saw coming. That’s a big difference. If I’m another team, I wouldn’t be thinking about Griffin Jones, but now I am.”
Walter Tebbetts (third, 17:14), Jones and Ryan Yanko (fifth, 17:33) placed in the top five for the Hurricanes. Coming into the season, Amherst wanted to create depth at the top of its lineup.
“It’s going to be a difference-maker for us in the big meets if we can keep it like this,” Gould said. “That is what we did not have at the beginning of the year. … If we can make that happen in big meets, that will really help us succeed.”
Amherst’s runners knew that having a deep group that can put up good times could make a difference against the Blue Devils.
“We don’t have the greatest star power in western Mass. Northampton has that up top,” Goff said. “We knew coming into the meet that if we had any chance of winning, we would have to rely on our depth. I think we executed perfectly.”
With so much on the line, there were nerves from some runners in the lead up to the meet.
“It was a little intimidating, I was pouring over this meet during the weekend and at school today,” Goff said. “I was thinking a lot about it, but once we got to the line, we knew what we needed to do.”
The course is known for its tough terrain. Although it’s their home course, the Hurricanes made sure to put in some extra preparation before coming into the meet.
“It’s a really tough course,” Gould said. “We did a workout on it last week. We broke it up into sections and worked hard. Once you go up one hill there is still more coming, so you have to break the course into units. You get used to the fact that everyone is going to have to suffer a little bit on some of the really tough parts of it.”
Ben Howe placed sixth overall in 17:41 for Northampton (6-1, 4-1 Valley North). Simon LeClair (eighth, 18:03), Tim Jacques (ninth, 18:11) and Jonathan Lischetti (10th, 18:16) filled out Northampton’s top five.
Northampton coach Dave Reinhart was out of town for Monday’s meet. Blue Devils assistant coach Kristine Ross instructed the team in his stead.
“Their maturity in handling a loss was well done,” Ross said. “They are clearly disappointed and not happy with themselves, but they’re ready to get back to the grind and face these guys again at the Pioneer Valley Championship and Western Mass. Part of being a mature athlete is looking at what went wrong, reviewing it and try to learn from it.”