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Rangers reign supreme yet again

Wednesday, October, 21 By Dave Dyer
Staff writer

METHUEN — Tyler Sullivan showed in a painful way yesterday afternoon that nothing could stop the Methuen boys cross country team.

In a battle of two of the state’s top teams, the Rangers, who are No. 3 in the State Coaches’ Division 1 poll, clipped No. 2 Lowell in convincing fashion, 23-32.

The Rangers earned — once again — the top perch in the Merrimack Valley Conference.

With the victory, the Rangers (9-0) finished their fifth undefeated dual-meet season in the last eight years and, along with a 15-50 shutout of Billerica, captured their school record 25th straight victory.

With the eye-opening win over Lowell (now 8-1), which had been No. 1 until this week, the Rangers could vault past No. 1 Mansfield.

There were many heroes for the Rangers on this day, including overall winner Jared Reddy, who smashed the 2.87-mile Methuen course record by 17 seconds with a blazing 14:40.

But the biggest hero was Sullivan.

Ordinarily the No. 4 runner, Sullivan got off to a rough start when he was tripped and fell on his wrist within 100 yards of the start, creating a rare false start.

Later, he found out that he had broken his wrist, but it was not about to stop him from lining up for a re-start.

“It just made me want to do better,” said Sullivan. “I’ve been looking forward to this meet for a long time and it (wrist) didn’t hurt that much while I was running.”

Apparently not, because Sullivan came on strong midway through the race and finished as the No. 2 Ranger, in fourth place overall, with a 15:12, a personal-best time on the course by nearly a minute.

“He (Sullivan) is a big-race runner and, if something bad is going to happen, you want it to be to him,” said Methuen coach Bill James. “He’s a tough kid.”

Reddy and Sullivan weren’t the only Rangers running the race of their lives. Andrew Stamatopulos (15:16), Ben Pare (15:27) and improving junior Cam Kelley (15:30) finished in a pack from 5-7 to complete Methuen’s scoring and provide a time split of 50 seconds.

“This was the best-case scenario for us,” said James. “Cam has been coming on strong and all those times were their best ever on this course. To have the next four within 50 seconds of a great runner like Jared is great — it’s the fastest race we’ve ever had.”

It was definitely fast for Reddy, who was clocked in 4:47 for the first mile and 10:04 at the second mile.

“I’ve been visualizing this race since the beginning of the year,” said Reddy. “The strategy was to go out fast and I felt good the whole way. We had a lot at stake today and we wanted to do our best.”

That mission was accomplished.

“We knew this would be tough, and Methuen ran a great race,” said Lowell coach Phil Maia. “Those were incredible times.”

Lowell junior Mike Giardina, who finished second, also broke the old course record. His time of 14:56 was one second faster than the old mark, set by Haverhill’s Zach Sampson in 2005.
 
Methuen dynasty
By defeating Lowell 23-32 and Billerica 15-50 yesterday, Methuen:
— Completed its second straight undefeated season and fifth in the last eight years
— Improved its record in those eight years to 71-6
— Won its school-record 25th straight dual meet
— Defeated perennial power Lowell for the seventh time in the last eight years