By Michael Letendre
BURLINGTON – The Bristol Eastern boys cross country team had a split decision on Tuesday afternoon – on an unusually hot October day – as the Lancers traveled to Johnnycake Mountain in Burlington to square off against Platt and host Lewis Mills in CCC South competition.
The Kingstreeters fell to Mills by a 20-38 final while spinning Platt (16-45) to split the day.
Mills took the meet behind an excellent finish from winner David Iacino with a time of 19:11 – one of three runners from Mills that took a slot among the top three.
Also for Mills, Zachery Barth (19:32) was the runner up at the event while Ryan Pasqualini (19:43) nabbed a third-place finish.
For the boys at BE, sophomore Jase Koczur took fourth place in just over twenty minutes (20
:03) while teammate, junior Brendan Tartarelli (20:15), wasn’t far behind in fifth.
Also for Eastern, sophomore Cole Beland (20:59) came in seventh place and junior Kyle Kelley (10th, 21:40) finished among the top-10 ten in the race.
Rounding out the day for Eastern was Jonathan Casarola (13th, 22:35), Szymon Winiarczyk (18th, 23:50) and Dylan Prince (20th, 24:21).
With the split, the Lancers sit at 4-2 overall this season with a huge showdown on tap next Thursday in Bristol.
On the girls side, Eastern was a dual winner as the squad defeated both Mills and Platt by identical 15-50 scores.
Platt’s Erin Sola won the event (23:40) and had a couple other top finishers but did not have enough runners to officially score at the event.
The girls program at BEHS is now 4-2 overall, matching the boys’ excellent record.
Eastern’s final regular season CCC South bout is a big one as the squad, along with St. Paul Catholic, travels to Rockwell park next Thursday to battle Bristol Central in another exciting city series showdown.
