By Michael Letendre
For the second consecutive season, the annual girls City Series Cross Country meet was won by an underclassman.
But that harrier, Bristol Eastern sophomore Kaelyn Gonzalez, hardly resembles a youngster on the course.
She made a tremendous impact as a freshman at BEHS, storming the scene and seizing the city series championship on a freezing Saturday morning from St. Paul Catholic High School last season.
Her time of 22:00 flat was 43 seconds better than the runner up, putting her on the scholastic map.
That trail was relatively flat, encompassing Stafford Avenue, but Gonzalez led from wire to wire.
Isn’t that a familiar sequence at just about every race Gonzalez takes a part of?
Well, in the rematch this past Thursday at Rockwell Park between the city schools, the speedster once again dominated – spinning up a winning time of 22:51.5 while runner-up, St. Paul Catholic sophomore Gretchen Radcliff, finished in 23:33.3.
“It was like a lot of pressure to keep the pace going and trying to get first place again for the second year in a row,” said Gonzalez of the win. “But I’m really happy I did it.”
The city series battles between Gonzalez and Radcliff should be fun over the next couple of years.
The course
The cross country course at Rockwell Park might not contain the hills and different elevation that Page Park challenges harriers with.
But Rockwell has its own challenges and isn’t the preverbal day in the park when it comes to cross country events.
“The hill in the back is really high up,” said Gonzalez. “And it’s really hard to get up but once I got to the top, I was good from there.”
Rockwell is probably the best representation of outdoor running between the three schools.
Page has more hills than the law should legally allow, the course at St. Paul Catholic is on the flat side — much like Plainville — while Rockwell has tremendous balance.
However, that’s what makes the annual event so special as the schools rotate the hosting duties with those different trails and seeing a different course every season makes the City Series bout different and challenging when October rolls around each year.
Now, will Gonzalez, when it comes time for her junior campaign, go for the trifecta with a first-place victory at home from Page Park – giving her a clean sweep of the courses in Bristol over City Series meets?
Can we fast forward to 2024 already?
All TBE readers, supporters and donors
The Bristol Edition will be limiting the number of stories non-members and free readers may access each week. This decision is based on our financial projections and, most certainly, to remind people that TBE is serious about providing accurate, timely and thorough reporting for Bristol. To do this we have devised a financial support structure that makes unlimited access extremely affordable, beginning with a $6 monthly donation.
- Non-members will be able to access four (4) articles per week.
- Free readers and people who have subscribed by email will be able to access four (4) articles per week.
- Donors and financial supporters will have unlimited access as long as they log in.
Note: Donors may have to contact TBE if they find they are being limited, since we will need to set up a membership account for you. Email editor@bristoledition.org for instructions. Sorry for any inconvenience. People with financial difficulties may write editor@bristoledition.org to be considered for free access.
